10-10-2013, 12:13 PM | #31 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
|
Re: What makes a good villain?
Quote:
What makes a good villain is often the same as what makes a good hero however with different goals and means. For instance the Yakusa crimelord who studies martial arts, Samurai philosophy, fancies himself a Daimyo, and really can fight a duel, and really does have a SoD toward his family and his mooks, maybe even a CoH; but at the same time engages in drug-dealing, gunrunning, and slave prostitution might be a good villain. He has heroic qualities but he puts them at the service of evil.
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
|
10-10-2013, 12:41 PM | #32 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Earth, mostly
|
Re: What makes a good villain?
Quote:
It's a long-standing truism that "everyone is the hero of their own story," and this applies at least as well to the bad guys as the good guys. Emperor Palapatine didn't subvert the Republic and found the Galactic Empire so he could lord it over everyone - he did it so he could bring order to the galaxy. Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader while seeking the power to help people - whether they wanted his help or not. The Angels of the Lord, in the novel Lucifer's Hammer, had fallen under the sway of an insane preacher while trying to find a way to forgive themselves for some horrible things they had done in order to survive after Hammerfall (especially the cannibalism). And so forth. A good, memorable villain will always act as if he's right and it's the heroes who are at best naive, and at worst working against the interests of the world at large. Also, if you can figure out ways to make the heroes doubt themselves in conversations, that can help a lot. A good Not So Different speech can do wonders there, or one that just recasts the villain's past actions in a different light. (For example, and dipping into Star Wars again, the conversation between Anakin and Senator Palpatine during the Gungan opera in, IIRC, Revenge of the Sith, in which the actions of one Sith Lord are said to be due to his seeking the power to heal disease, and to have been actively discredited by the Jedi because they feared anyone with that much power. It played on Anakin's existing distrust of the senior Jedi, planting a seed of doubt that Palpatine could later nurture into a full-blown tree of betrayal.)
__________________
If you break the laws of Man, you go to prison. If you break the laws of God, you go to Hell. If you break the laws of Physics, you go to Sweden and receive a Nobel Prize. |
|
10-10-2013, 12:56 PM | #33 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
|
Re: What makes a good villain?
The TOS Khan hadn't seen his friends and family die because Captain Kirk was an arrogant ass-hole. That kind of thing can warp a man.
__________________
“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius |
10-10-2013, 05:52 PM | #34 | |
Banned
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
|
Re: What makes a good villain?
Quote:
For an example of a bad villain, look at the Archimandrite in M. Banks' "The Algebraist". It's a fairly good (non-Culture) science fiction novel in genreal, but he's completely over the top in terms of sadism. |
|
10-11-2013, 02:25 AM | #35 |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
|
Re: What makes a good villain?
He also seems to be 'on-screen' for almost no reason whatsoever - he could as well be the nameless all-seeing council behind the curtain.
|
10-11-2013, 02:55 AM | #36 |
Banned
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
|
Re: What makes a good villain?
I've only read that one twice, and don't recall all of the plot clearly, but IIRC he could have been omitted completley from the novel. Without reducing page count much.
|
10-11-2013, 03:32 AM | #37 |
Join Date: Jul 2006
|
Re: What makes a good villain?
As far as I can see all the Archimandrite adds is gratuitous sex and violence - his intended function may be to add moral ambiguity to the Beyonder Alliance: We're shown the oppressive side of the Mercatoria but the Beyonders seem fairly innocuous until you add in their alliance with the Starveling theocracy.
|
10-11-2013, 05:51 AM | #38 | |
Banned
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
|
Re: What makes a good villain?
Quote:
|
|
10-13-2013, 08:18 PM | #39 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
|
Re: What makes a good villain?
Villains come in various flavors, and they don't necessarily mix and match well.
For example, consider Tolkien's use of Feanor. He wasn't initially a villain, and later he becomes a class 'tragic villain', brought low by the interaction of the actions of other villains, mistakes and misjudgements by other non-villains, and his own innate character flaws. In one sense, the villainous state of Feanor was a case of a certain sort of madness, brought on by the loss of the Silmarils, the death of the Two Trees, centuries of built-up resentment over various slights real and imagined, and above all else the murder of his father. Yet he almost certainly still knew right from wrong, he had just ceased to care about them beyond his own personal 'rights and wrongs', leading to his self-daming Oath, murderous assault on Alqualonde, his betrayal of the other Noldor, his rashness in running ahead of his armies enabling his own capture and murder. Before his death, though, he manages to pull down the majority of his entire people with him. Feanor was unquestionablly a 'good villain'. Complex, sympathetic, a victim in a very real way, yet unquestionably a villain. Contrast Feanor with a character who shares certain traits with him: Victor Frankenstein, as handled by two different authors, his original creator Mary Shelley, and the modern writer Dean Koontz. Both versions of Victor share with Feanor the trait of tremendous gifts of intellect, beyond the measure of other members of their races. Both versions of Victor are also aware of their gifts, relative to their fellows. Mary Shelley's version is more complex, his villainy more nuanced, than Koontz's. Yet interestingly, both are villains in their own way, and Shelley's verison knows that he has been the villain of the story to some degree, yet not entirely so. This is also true of the Creature, who is both protagonist and villain of the story, just as Victor is. (The actual hero of the novel Frankenstein is hardly in it, i.e. Captain Walton.) Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 10-13-2013 at 08:24 PM. |
10-21-2013, 08:31 PM | #40 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
|
Re: What makes a good villain?
Captain Kirk could have taken him back to headquarters where they would have to spend the rest of their lives in prison. Instead he offered them a chance to try out their own worldview by building a civilization on their own. If Khan meant what he said, then any risks he took were part and parcel of that and Kirk was being a magnanimous and chivalrous opponent.
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
Tags |
villains |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|