How Are Well Written Evil Characters Done? Let’s Discuss

Hi. Hey. Hello.

My weekly post is a day late, but this time I have an even better excuse than Elden Ring. At least, I think having to hide in a basement from southern weather is a solid one.

Anyway, now that I can turn my computer back on, free from worry that she’ll get fried, let’s talk about what really matters: villains.

I love a good villain in a piece of media. And by that I don’t mean a villain that is technically good at heart, but it certainly can mean that.

You hear a lot of people talk about how important it is to flesh out your protagonist, but your villain is arguably even more important.

Your villain is your foil, a good portion of your conflict, and therefore a huge part of whatever story you’re trying to tell. There have been some incredible villains that have not only stolen protagonists’ hopes and dreams, but also our hearts.

If you think about some of the heavy hitters of the entertainment industry: Harry Potter, Batman, The MCU, LOTR, Star Wars, people will likely be able to pick out at least two characters even if they’re not familiar with the media. The protagonist, and the villain.

Voldemort, The Joker, Thanos, Loki, Gollum, and Darth Vader are often more talked about, quoted, memed, and merched than even our beloved protagonists.

Villains have had an enormous impact on our culture as a whole, and there have been some really awesome ones over the years.

What causes these impacts? Why are these villains so popular? Why is it that so many years later, just about anybody recognizes and likely goes wild when The Joker is shown on screens? We’re going to discuss all of these things and more. Today we’re going to talk about how you write an oxymoron, a good villain.

** This post is going to be loaded with spoilers for all above villains, as well as Red Dead Redemption 2, Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone series, Encanto, Cruella, Brian Jacques’ Outcast of Redwall, and the Vampire Diaries Spin-Off The Originals.**

I’ve broken down some of the most stellar villains in media to 8 main categories. Most of your really badass and/or likable villains will fit into at least one of these categories. Let’s discuss them.

1.) Make their actions feel justified/make them sympathetic

2.) Add in characters that act as the voice of reason

3.) Make them have an inner struggle of good vs. evil

4.) Make them fun/eccentric/enjoyable to read or watch

5.) Make their mission understandable but their methods questionable

6.) Make it seem as if the villain had no choice in their actions or what they’ve done is their nature

7.) Make them a legitimately looming threat

8.) Give them a final act of redemption before their death or other fate

Reading through these, you have probably already associated at least one of these with a villain you know of. And all of the best ones will have at least one of these traits. Think of this list as a bag of tricks that authors, directors, and designers pull out to make you fall in love with a villain.

Keep in mind that by “fall in love with a villain” I don’t necessarily mean you like them. Some of the best villains are the most hated and rage inducing characters in media. What matters is the passion that these characters invoke in us. There’s a really fine line between hatred and love, because at the end of the day, passion is passion.

So let’s go in order and break these down.

1.)

Making a villain’s actions feel justified and/or making them sympathetic is an incredibly common and fairly simple tactic in media. Usually they’re tied in with number 5 and 6 on the list, but we’re going to take these one at a time and come back to villains that use a variation of these 3.

Usually all it takes is a brief monologue by our villain about what they’ve been through, a flashback showing their tragic backstory, or our protagonist/other characters making a cruel and costly mistake.

This can often make villains look better in our eyes.

There’s a reason why the “bad villain is bad” trope is popular in children’s media, and it’s usually not because directors are taking the easy way out. It’s because making your story straightforward and black and white is how you sell tickets to families. The kids get to watch a lot of flashy colors and a straight forward story that spells out who to root for, and the parents don’t have a bunch of explaining to do after they leave the theater. When villains are more fleshed out, sometimes it’s not clear who should be the hero, who should win the day.

Obviously this isn’t the way all children’s media is portrayed. However, typically when directors choose to flesh out their villains, or even go in the direction of films like Encanto or Turning Red, where the real villain in the story is generational trauma, and while it can be argued that a certain character is the antagonist, multiple characters do wrong and have to correct their behavior, the reception is usually incredibly mixed, and there are tons of parents all over social media screaming that these films might invoke questions, concerns, or unveil their own toxicity to their children. Gasp.

So, a lot of times, creators go with the easier path. The villains in young children’s media are often portrayed as needlessly evil, doing horrible things for the sake of it, and aren’t given a fleshed out backstory.

This stops most audience members from being able to relate to them. And relatability is a huge part of that justified evil pass or sympathy we give to villains.

Klaus from The Originals is technically a protagonist, but he serves as an antagonist/antihero for a lot of the show. He is one of those characters that invokes a lot of passion, and I consider him one of the best done show antiheroes in recent history.

Klaus’ arc is fairly unique in that he traps audience members in an endless loop of

Klaus does bad thing, you hate him

You learn Klaus did it to protect one of his family members, you begrudgingly like him.

Another worse antagonist comes along and you know Klaus is the only character who will have the balls to kill them, so you root for him. This is usually combined with a short scene of him fighting with himself (number 3) about his evil ways, or just the general reminder that he does in fact have a heart and feelings.

Then the cycle repeats, and you’re left feeling as if you’re in a toxic relationship with this made up character that you just can’t bring yourself to leave.

And in that way he is a deliciously deep and interesting character. His actions are often justified through the protection of his family, and we can’t really argue with his methods considering fantasy writing is unique in that it often puts characters in situations and forces them to make choices we would never experience or have to make in real life.

When his actions aren’t justified and you go back to hating the guy, he hits you with some trauma or another piece of his tragic backstory, and you’re reeled back in.

And even if you’re reading this and disagreeing with me because you absolutely loathe the guy…

That’s still passion, so you’ve proven my point.

2.)

When we add in characters that act as the voice of reason, this does several different things at once. First, let me explain what I mean by this.

This can mean a character that the villain deeply cares about condemning their actions, the protagonist trying to convince them to change their ways in a life or death situation, or even a character latching onto the villain and being sure they can save them, like the relationship we see between Frodo and Gollum in LOTR.

We see this in the Shadow and Bone series with The villain’s (The Darkling) mother, Baghra. During the series, she spends a fair amount of time arguing with the protagonist Alina that her son can in fact be saved. She holds out hope even after her own son blinds her.

It’s only in the last book of the series that Baghra accepts her son’s horrible and evil ways, and sacrifices herself to distract him so our heroes can escape. The Darkling, despite his evil, cares deeply for his mother, and he is driven mad with grief, swooping after her as she falls.

This adds a tragic element to The Darkling, in that one of the people he cares most about condemns him and would sacrifice herself to prevent his plans from succeeding.

In the game Red Dead Redemption 2, one of our villains is Dutch Van Der Linde. We will talk more about him later, but for now I want to focus on the gang.

Hosea Matthews, one of the original members of the gang, can often be seen in camp begging Dutch to go about things differently. Hosea acts as the voice of reason for Dutch, and his avoidance and later on belligerence in response makes Dutch’s mistakes late game feel that much more impactful and ultimately makes him feel more alive as a character.

Even our protagonist and player, Arthur Morgan, disagrees vocally with Dutch’s methods on occasion, and he is often gaslit and guilt tripped into silence by Dutch when he speaks up.

3.)

This is another popular one, and it can be utilized in more than one way.

Making characters question or reflect on their choices is incredibly important in media. Many a protagonist is disliked because of their inability to question their choices. But today we’re talking about villains.

We talked about this a little bit with Klaus earlier, that he often will sit down and question what he’s doing or what it might cost later. At the end of the day, destruction will only bring you destruction in return. The more enemies you defeat the more you create, which is one of the themes in the show.

We also see this in Gollum when he is reminded of his past as Smeagol by Frodo. Gollum’s is much more of a concrete, visual battle of good vs. evil. We actually see him arguing with his old personality as Smeagol and his new personality brought on by the corruption of the ring.

But this technique doesn’t always have to be in the audience’s face. Loki from the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) is often thought to be taking the high road only to turn on the heroes. He spends pretty much his entire on-screen time betraying the heroes, but the majority of audience members assume he is battling with good and evil, because he helps the heroes in the first place. Loki is bolstered a lot by the argument that what he’s doing is just his way, which we’ll talk about when we discuss villains doing things that are simply their nature. Audience members can easily argue that Loki often battles with good and evil, and at the same time argue that he’s always going to choose the darker side of himself.

4.)

This is usually the trick directors pull out when they do those revamps of Disney villains where they make them sympathetic and fun.

“Your characters don’t have to be likable, they just have to be fun to watch.”

This is a quote by Alan Seawright from the Youtube channel Cinema Therapy‘s video on Disney’s Cruella, and it is what initially gave me the idea for this blog post.

Now we come back to one of my original thoughts. Villains aren’t always likable, but they’re beloved all the same.

One of the most powerful tricks that makes this so is when directors make them charming, eccentric, fun, colorful, and thrilling.

If The Joker didn’t immediately come to mind, please crawl out from whatever rock you’ve been living under.

On a serious note, The Joker is the easiest and most readily available example of this. He’s full of color, always doing something unexpected, and it’s undeniable that he is an absolute blast to watch. It doesn’t even matter who he’s portrayed by, if The Joker is on screen, he’s going to take you on one hell of a ride.

His female counterpart, Harley Quinn, is just as much of a thrill. She has a loud, upbeat, fun accent, is vibrant and excitable, and has become an icon for trashy Halloween parties, merch, sayings, makeup tutorials, and money.

We see this in Loki as well, in his flamboyant and over the top actions, outfits, and behavior.

Disney’s Cruella may not be up your alley if you’re not into fashion, as that is a huge theme in the movie, but Cruella is an incredibly fun character to watch. Her descent into madness and her eccentric, out of pocket behavior at every turn in the film makes for an exciting and fun watch.

And of course in Dutch Van Der Linde, who is one of the most dramatic, charming, and unexpected antagonists in video game history. His in-camp speeches about faith, trust, (and pixie dust) are drenched in flair and honey, with echoes of desperation and a lurking fear that grows to a fever pitch as the game progresses.

This isn’t a tactic that is unique to villains, but it has certainly shaped some of the most successful ones.

5.)

Some of the most tragic and sympathetic villains are ones that make us understand why they might be doing what they’re doing, even if we don’t agree with the way they’re going about it.

Thanos is probably the most well-known example of this. The MCU villain (specifically the MCU in this case, as in the comics Thanos does what he does because Death asks him to) knows the world is overpopulated, bad things are happening, and it is full of death and destruction.

Our initial thoughts may not be to commit genocide, but we realize these are issues all the same.

Thus the existence of that Internet hashtag that was going around for awhile, “Thanos did nothing wrong.”

Some audience members felt that Thanos just did what most people wouldn’t have the strength to do, for the greater good. It is a mission that if skewed in the correct way, could easily become justified if it was our protagonist going about this. Not to mention Thanos admits this is his destiny, and what he was sent to do. This is one of the most popular tropes among protagonists, the idea that they have to follow their destiny regardless of what stands in their way.

Another example of this is once again The Darkling in the Shadow and Bone series. His goal is simply to make a place in the world that respects the Grisha (the magic users in the world) rather than have themselves seen as slaves to be used or a lesser race to be walked over and become obsolete in the face of more powerful technology and weapons.

His childhood was fraught with trauma and the idea that Grisha would never be accepted was pounded into his head, leading him to his ultimate mission to create a world for Grisha, a safe place to be themselves.

However, the power goes to his head and his anger and bitterness only grows over the years, leading him to try and take over the world by force, have full control over protagonist Alina’s power, and destroy anyone who stands in his way.

6.)

Now we can return to Loki.

Loki in the MCU is loosely based on the actual God in mythology. If you don’t know much about mythology, Loki is the God of fire and mischief.

He is almost always up to no good, doing something questionable, or betraying someone. And while this may not be accepted in other characters, when this is combined with his eccentric and flamboyant ways, as well as the concept that Loki really can’t help what he’s doing because it is his nature, audience members flock to him.

This can also tie into any grooming or indoctrination that villains may have received in their childhood or younger years, like we talked about above in regards to The Darkling.

7.)

For some villains, their creators don’t bother with making them sympathetic or fun or compelled by their nature, but rather just a legitimately terrifying prospect or threat.

This is the case with the majority of your big name horror villains: Jason, Freddy, etc. The concept pretty much explains itself, and as someone who isn’t a big fan of the horror genre, I’ll just leave it at that. It doesn’t mean the villains didn’t make a lasting impact on the audience, or that they don’t regularly rake in dough when another sequel is made.

This is also certainly the case with Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. We don’t even see the actual Voldemort (with a body) until well into the series, but he is still legitimate as a threat.

The reason for this is of course how villainous he comes across, (attempting to kill a baby) the fact that most characters won’t even utter his name, and the fact that he actually does evil things.

A really easy way to make a villain an established threat is to just have them do something evil and impactful, like murdering Cedric Diggory.

The reason the villains in books like Twilight fall flat is that they are never established as a true threat to our heroes. The only other character we know of that James has hunted in the first Twilight book is Alice, and we already know that he failed in his mission. The Volturi, the shady moblike council that runs the vampire world has no bite (pun intended), because the only semi scary or threatening thing they do besides killing tourists that have no tie to our heroes is kill a few newborn vampires that the protagonists had already mostly killed anyway, and show that they possibly probably might want to kill or recruit some of our protagonists in the last 20 pages of the last book in the series. Terrifying.

8.)

Ah, the redemption arc. This is a trope that typically happens right before a character’s death (but not always), and is a way for them to undo a lifetime of treachery by going out on a high note.

This is the case with Darth Vader in Star Wars. He spends a really long time being evil and villainous, only to finally see the error of his ways and help Luke kill Palpatine, the true villain. Darth still doesn’t make it, but his actions redeemed him of some of the horrible things he did in the eyes of the audience as well as Luke.

In Outcast of Redwall, one of the books in Brian Jacques’ Redwall series, the main character Bryony is given a ferret baby named Veil (who are typically considered villains in the Redwall series along with stoats, foxes, and rats). Veil spends pretty much the whole book trying to run from Bryony and choose evil over good, only to die in Bryony’s arms when he jumps in front of a spear to save her life. I remember this moment being very impactful the first time I read the book because despite all of his flaws and evil, it was really easy to make the switch to sympathizing with him as he shows the true good inside.

Conclusion

A good villain can be difficult to write. But if it’s done correctly, it only enriches a story further.

Protagonists are important to flesh out, but make sure you give your villains some love too. They probably didn’t get enough in their childhood.

Okay, I’ve been typing for way too long, so I’ll leave you here. Think of your favorite villains, and where they fit in this list.

Enjoy media in all of its flow and nuance, and above all,

Happy watching!