How To Craft The Perfect Villain?
Villains constitute the core of a story! As a storyteller, you cannot allow yourself to introduce your audience to a mediocre antagonist. After all, it’s the villain’s evilness that makes the hero’s righteousness!
Every great story has an impressive villain! Darth Vader, The Joker, and, lastly, Lord Voldemort are all antagonists that we know because of their impact on the story. If you don’t think so, allow me to ask you the following: do you really think that the Star Wars saga would have continued if Anakin Skywalker hadn’t become a Sith? Or perhaps you think that a Gotham City without a Joker is worth having a multi-billionaire secretly beating criminals to a pulp at night? Or do you rather believe that Harry Potter would be the “chosen one” if it weren’t for Voldemort?
Cornelius, I implore you to see reason! Albus Dumbledore.
For many years now, authors have been continuously studying the art of crafting the perfect villain! And today, with movies, series, and books, we have an immeasurable amount of incredible villains that we need to study to be able to replicate them, perhaps in our own stories. Now studying them means a lot, so let’s simply say that we’ll make use of a scientific approach consisting of Data, Analysis, and Interpretation to get an adequate conclusion.
Personal Connection Between the Villain and the Protagonist:
In every great story, the author makes sure to establish a strong, personal connection between the villain and the hero. We’ve seen it with diverse masterpieces. The conflict between those two should be more than just opposing goals.
“Neither can live while the other survives” is an interesting prophecy from the universe of Harry Potter that implies and summarizes the complexity of the conflict between Harry Potter and Voldemort. Moreover, not only do they have an emotional attachment to each other, but they also share the same body since Harry is one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes, leading to somewhat of a physical and spiritual bond.
“I am your Father” — this phrase from Darth Vader is not only a meme all over the internet, but it’s also a 4D chess move from George Lucas, where he establishes an emotional, familial, and technically physical (if you know, you know) bond with his son, Luke Skywalker! Thus triggering some empathy in the reader, as well as in Luke.
So, going from such examples (from such data), we can conclude that as a storyteller, you should craft your villain with the intention of creating a villain-hero conflict that involves emotional stakes, whether it’s a personal history, a shared past, or conflicting ideologies.
Choose Your Villain: Pure Evil, Or a Fallen Hero?!
A villain is difficult to define. I would even say that it’s difficult to talk about them. After all, are we born villains, or do we become one? Is it a hero who lived long enough to become a villain? Or is it rather simply someone who wants to destroy the world as we know it? Now when choosing your villain, you have to justify his actions. Every reader is at a certain moment going to ask himself: what is his purpose? What motivates him to do all of that?
“Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” You can choose to create a purely evil character, someone whose purpose is to destroy! But beware that if you do so, your hero should dispose of the same degree of virtuousness. Take Batman and Joker as an example. If the Joker weren’t that crazy, the character itself of Batman would have been your average superhero.
“You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.” Immunizing your villain from criticism involves providing a solid backstory. Break away from the typical narrative where the once normal villain experiences a minor trauma that transforms them into their current state. Think outside the box! Consider Darth Vader, formerly Anakin Skywalker, the chosen one destined to save humanity from the Sith. Regrettably, various circumstances, including the pursuit of power with the intent to help others, led him to switch sides in the end.
Now if there is one conclusion we can learn from these examples, it is that in order to provide readers with a perfect villain that incarnates evilness and that is the living definition of a villain, you should avoid one-dimensional villains. Give your antagonist depth by exploring their background, experiences, and emotions. Consider their fears, desires, and internal conflicts to make them more relatable and, more importantly, to force the reader to say: “That’s why he does that.”
Don’t Tell Me, Show Me!
There is no way to prove that a villain is evil besides showing it through their actions! Can you imagine side characters telling you throughout the entire story that someone is evil when you’ve never seen them in action? Now, many directors and authors have found various ways to primarily portray the villain as the devil, thus doing it in an original way.
When it comes to authors, J.K. Rowling fortunately shared with us the example of Voldemort. A character who, after hearing that a kid was going to defeat him, decided without a doubt to kill him as a baby! Not only do his actions demonstrate his pure evilness, but they also show us that to reach his goals, a villain should be ready to do everything, even if it implies committing the worst crime known to existence.
“Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair.” In “The Dark Knight” Christopher Nolan, through The Joker’s actions, demonstrates his willingness to destroy in a very simple yet complex way, and that is through dialogue. Christopher Nolan makes sure to SHOW US how evil the Joker truly is, and using such a 4D chess move is a great way to demonstrate that, especially since he uses adequate words.
To craft your antagonist, you should, as a storyteller, demonstrate your villain’s evilness through their actions, dialogue, and decisions rather than simply telling the audience what kind of person they are. Let their behavior speak for itself.
To conclude this article, let me emphasize that your villain holds greater significance than your hero! A story attains greatness when it boasts an exceptional villain, while even a well-crafted narrative with a compelling plot can falter if burdened with a boring antagonist. When working on your book or script, resist the temptation to center your narrative solely around a goal or a hero. Ensure that every line you craft is linked to your villain. Similarly, guarantee that each action your villain takes resonates throughout the story, thereby shaping not only their trajectory but also the journey of the hero.
