Best way to make a Villain

[Dib]

Originally I was going to post this in Arts and Crafts, but wasn't sure if that was the place for it, so I decided to come here... sorry if that was a bad choice...

But basically I'm starting work on a comic and am stumped on a villain. I don't want anything that's been done before either,

I want to come up with a good history and something different in the way of powers... all I know is that he has bound the essence of a demon to himself, but don't know anything else...

I want him to be more than just strong and quick... I want him to give off a certain element of fear... he needs to put a chill up your spine when you see or even think about him...

But I'm not sue how to make this work :smallfrown: so any advice would be great, cheers

[Totally Guy]

I'm not really a writer but I did see a very inspirational villain earlier in the week. No doubt you've seen the constant trailers for Jackanory on the BBC, The Magician of Samarkand is the story of the rise and fall of the evil wizard Zohak Ali, it explains his arrival in the city and how he quickly builds up his empire and conquers everything with a lawful evil grip. If you need that part of the character's concept I'd highly recommend watching it. (See, filling in location is helpful!)

I'd also take a look at at the villain workshop (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/rTKEivnsYuZrh94H1Sn.html) on this website to give your baddy motivation and all the rest of it.

[Dib]

Actually I haven't heard of it, but I'll keep an eye out for it, and cheers for the linky :smile:

[headwarpage]

I read once that the best villains always believe that they are entirely justified in whatever it is that they are doing. It gives them a sense of believability and personality beyond "Haha, I am evil." Two good examples of this in the webcomic Goblins (somebody get the man a link), are Kore and Goblin Slayer. Both completely evil, both entirely convinced that they're the good guys. Remember, torturing kittens is evil, torturing kittens because you think it's good/necessary is scary.

[Dib]

hmm... I see your point... except for those kittens... why's that evil? I do it all the time,

[Brady_Kj]

Or you could go with a completely different route. Go for a chaotic evil guy, similar to the joker only he seems to be perverted and he just looooves fire. The kind of guy who would bind a demon's essence to himself just because he loves the idea of more killing power that would lead to.
And if you can find a way to convincingly mix this with thinking whatever he does is right, that would be awesome. Perhaps he thinks the world and everyone in it (including himself) is absolutely irredeemably corrupt, and that he might as well enjoy being corrupt.
Or perhaps he believes he ought to acquire as much power as he can to destroy the corrupt world. And he might as well have some evil fun in the meantime.

[headwarpage]

Ah, but what if he bound the demon's essence to himself for the sole purpose of removing that demon's power from the world and either didn't expect or doesn't realize that the demon's essence has corrupted him. So he sees only the corruption and evil around him, and none of the good. Now he's justified in his own mind in pretty much everything he does, which can be pretty harsh indeed, but he's also something of a tragic figure, because he was trying to do something incredibly heroic that completely backfired on him.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I find that villains who believe what they're doing is right is a slightly scewed attempt at originality. No villain would believe their evil. In fact, that might be an original villain, like in that Tudor propaganda Shakespear play with the king who thinks he's an evil hunchback so he acts it.

Decent villain motivation/origin list

1. He comes from a family of people that bind demons to themselves and is just inheriting the family business. He might hate the world for treating his family poorly because of their reputation. Alternitively his family was aristocracy and they had a reputation of being demons and their own subjects killed them. He then decided to become a real demon in order to get his revenge.

2. He was experimented on by a secret society, megacorp or government agency dabbling in the occult. He either wants revenge or has been driven mad with power.

3. He was the leader of a secret society, megacorp or government agency dabbling in the occult and bound a demon to himself in order to gain power.

4. He read a mystic tomb and wanted to use it to ressurect a friend or create free energy and ended up binding a demon to himself and is now power crazed. He originally planned to sacrifise himself for good but was tricked.

5. He's an archeologist who was cursed with a demon from a evil artifact.

6. He's a demon hunter who bound a demon into himself in order to fight demons but lost control. Or he accidentaly bonded with a demon he was trying to kill. Perhaps the demon in him is made up of little pieces of every demon he's killed and only recently became sentient.

7. Same as any above except the demon slowly corrupted him and tricked him into the binding.

Ways to make a villain creepy

1. Demonic appearance, maybe he's constantly mutating.

2. Maybe he has two voices, one human, one demon.

3. Maybe the demon is clearly visable on his skin, like a demonic face on merging with his shoulder or some such.

4. Give him a bizarre form of movement. I once had a villain who had a giant spider on his back and his human limbs just drooped like they where broken and he moved with the spider legs.

5. Make him look normal and innocent but act completly strangely. For example, a clean shaven man in a business suit who talks in a big booming voice or cackle. Maybe he doesn't talk at all.

6. Maybe he's infested with a colony of demonic worms and the contantly drip out:smallfrown:

7. Maybe the demon is inside a particular body part such as one of his hands or eyes.

8. Don't show him. Make him an inigma that the audience doesn't meet until the end.

9. Maybe he doesn't want to hurt people but the demon makes him. He keeps telling people to run away and then kills them.

10. In order to make a villain be feared or menacing, you have to introduce him well. One way is to make him easily defeat another capable character on his first appearance.

Creepy Powers

1. Maybe he can detatch part of the demon and mind control or poison people.

2. Give him some kind of defensive power. Perhaps if you hurt him, bits of demon come out and infest you. Maybe if you stab him then his body absorbs your weapon.

3. Make his powers opposite to the hero

4. Some form of energy drain attack.

5. Telekinisis may seem common, but all the different creative uses are rarely explained.

6. Cannabalism, maybe he can steal people's powers by eating them.

7. Maybe he can disolve people just by touching him.

8. Give him some kind of aura that he can manipulate for attack and defence.

9. Look at the spell list from a dnd book, particularly book of vile darkness for ideas.

10. Maybe he doesn't fight at all but instead summons minions. There was a character I saw somewhere who was possessed by 1000 demons and could send them out of his body to attack people.

[Dib]

Woah! Nice list! Cheers... I think I'll be getting a lot of milage out of this one... :biggrin:

Isn't that last one from Samurai Jack?

[Closet_Skeleton]

Isn't that last one from Samurai Jack?

Not the one I was thinking of, but it could be true as well.

[Foeofthelance]

Actually, sounds more like Jackie Estacado from Darkness. Good comic, great character.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Well, it's obviously isn't original, I just remember seeing it in a certain anime based of a game at some point at least two years ago. If it works, it gets repeated.

[Bluelantern]

Thinking in demons? think in Buffy!

Taking example from the first, he could take the shape of the dead (maybe only people that he killed/absorved souls), he could be complete incorporeal, but however could manipulate others to do what he want. imagine don't be able to figth your enemy in a battle?

He could look like to someone whos the watcher loves.

He could be a cybernetic being. (I don't know you kind of comic).

He could be a vampire or werewolf demon, that means a vampire or werewolf x100

Just some ideas.

[wellington]

Why should a villain necessarily think they're doing any form of good? Isn't absolute moral apathy a perfectly fine route to villainy?

The "villain with a twisted, yet oddly noble, goal" is as much a shortcut as the "villain who's evil just because." A realistic motivation isn't what good villains have in common; Darth Vader's motivation turned out to suck, but that didn't stop him from being awesome. So what do they have in common?

1. Their actions follow naturally from their characters, even when those characters are basically one-dimensional. You can make a good shallow villain; Boris and Natasha had one note each, and were great fun. But you need restraint.

A well-written villain will not automatically do the coolest thing possible in any situation. Darth Vader doesn't strangle somebody in midair because it looks cool. He does it because he's angry, he's powerful, and he's Darth Vader. He wouldn't drop devastatingly witty one-liners in combat, not even if George Lucas thought of an awesomely funny one-liner. Even a Cool Villain cannot be every kind of Cool.

(The Ridiculously Cool Villain is overdone, anyway.)

Anyway, the best villains are true to themselves, while lousy villains are true to the author's desire to be original and witty, or to make a villain just like Sephiroth.

QUESTIONS: Is your villain a villain just because your story needs a villain? Does he act villainous just because he's a villain, or just because he has a Tragic Past? Is he always invariably awesome, or always totally pathetic? What's his favorite food? Does he care if he dies alone and unloved? Even a little?

2. The best villains strike a chord with us, even if they're shallow in themselves. A cardboard villain can be effective this way; Boris and Natasha are clumsy failures, but they're funny and persistent and that counts for something. If our imagination is engaged, we'll fill in the blanks and treat caricatures as characters for a little while.

The obvious way to evoke emotion is to play on universal fears, but you've got to be clever about it. The alien of Alien was not scary because we're scared of big acid-oozing bugs. It was scary because we're scared of being eaten from the inside. Also, fear isn't the only way to strike this deeper chord, and even if you use it, you might want to have your villain work on another level. Villains may engage our sympathy, or our own shameful power fantasies, or even our nobler aspirations. One of the greatest villains ever written is John Milton's version of Satan, and he never invokes real fear at all.

QUESTIONS: What sort of chord does your villain strike with you? Does he scare you? Embody something you loathe? Something you love? One way to write an interesting villain or anti-hero is to think of some things that you consider wonderful, valuable, and/or correct, and push them into the realm of Evil. Try making the villain a member of your own religion and political party (or its equivalent in his universe). Let your villain fervently hold beliefs that you cherish. And don't pull your punches.

(Related: Try making your hero somebody you disagree with fundamentally on multiple points. When you write, don't go out of your way to prove him or her wrong. Let things progress naturally.)

EXERCISES:

1. Do the "Villain who agrees with me" bit above.

2. Read up on sociopaths - Hervey Cleckley's "The Mask of Sanity" is available online, and it's worth skimming a few case studies.

3. Write down a list of fears, then write down something each fear calls to mind, or some potential extension or deeper aspect of that fear. For example, you might write "drowning" and "being buried alive." You could then expand the first to "thrashing, feeling powerless, suffocation and cold water in the lungs, death," and the second to "hopelessness, suffocation, darkness." And so on. Now, pick a set of these fears, and write a villain who either a) uses them to control others and/or embodies them, or b) feels them all the time.

In the case of drowning, this could give us a ghostly villain who was drowned while fleeing from the police across a swamp, and who, at night, drifts about aimlessly as an indistinct fog, until encountering his intended victim - then strikes with a cold, paralyzing chill and begins to condense...

4. Don't take what I've said too seriously; I've written a grand total of one (1) good villain, and even that might be a stretch.

[WoDHells]

Make him evil.

Hey! It wasn't THAT obvious!
:smallbiggrin:

[pestilenceawaits]

I think good Villains have a few traits that make them truly frightening.
1. The are absolutely convinced they are right and exude confidence.
2. They never waffle in their decisions (see #1) even if they are wrong so what they are unstoppable.
3. Confidence is not necessarily arrogance if things go badly because the good guy was smart the villain learns from his mistakes and doesn't make them again.
4. Good bad guys don't rely on people who will betray them they may have learned this the hard way or they just might be smart enough to avoid it in the first place.
5. Good villains aren't absolutely psychotic if you treat the people around you well they will stick up for you. some of the worst dictators in history built roads and aqueducts and their people became rich and soon completely supported the dictator.
6. They try to avoid making martyrs of good guys why kill the good guy when you can discredit and then depower them. then when everyone has forgotten about them then kill them so they don't get any revenge fantasies.

I'm out of ideas for now.

[plainsfox]

Putting in my two cents here, but I'd say make the antagonist as similar to the protagonist as possible. As with magnets....like repels.

For an example, let's take Peter Parker and Norman Osbourne (atleast in the early years.)

Peter Parker is an intelligent, hardworking person who recieved special powers as a result of an accident. He has one living relative and he has a busy life in addition to his other pursuits.

Norman Osbourne is an intelligent, hardworking person who recieved special powers as a result of an accident. He has one living relative and he has a busy life in addtion to his other pursuits.

Would their situations be reversed if Norman Osbourne chose to use his powers with responsibility? What would have happened if Peter's powers drove him mad?

I just think there is something especially chilling when a Protagonist looks at his opposite and realizes that that could have been him, but for fate.

[Bluelantern]

Putting in my two cents here, but I'd say make the antagonist as similar to the protagonist as possible. As with magnets....like repels.

For an example, let's take Peter Parker and Norman Osbourne (atleast in the early years.)

Peter Parker is an intelligent, hardworking person who recieved special powers as a result of an accident. He has one living relative and he has a busy life in addition to his other pursuits.

Norman Osbourne is an intelligent, hardworking person who recieved special powers as a result of an accident. He has one living relative and he has a busy life in addtion to his other pursuits.

Would their situations be reversed if Norman Osbourne chose to use his powers with responsibility? What would have happened if Peter's powers drove him mad?

I just think there is something especially chilling when a Protagonist looks at his opposite and realizes that that could have been him, but for fate.
Seriously, You take this from a "What if" comic, don't you?

How is the vilain DibTheBountyHunt?

[plainsfox]

Did they do one like that? I didn't read it. I swear!

[Closet_Skeleton]

Did they do one like that? I didn't read it. I swear!

The way you can guess the plots to these things it's surprising they bother paying people to write them.

[Vontango]

To make a intimidating villain, you need to give him an impressive deed.

Think Terminator. Ah-nuld simply walks into a police office and kills them, one by one. He was made intimidating.

To often, villains are made "all talk" by writers, talking about how bad they are, how evil they are, and losing to the heroes time and time again in battle.

If, in my D&D games, I need an intimidating villain, I never tell them of the villain, I introduce them to his accomplishments. The players find several burnt towns, and later discover that a warlord is attacking a city they know. They learn that he destroyed the villages. Later, he conquers the city, and becomes more powerful. They never face the villain directly until they become a serious problem, where he comes in to take them out personally.

A villain who is intimidating is more effective than a strong one, because the players will dread facing Mr. Intimidation.

Hey, this was my first post here. Sweet.

[Haggis_McCrablice]

A good villian is driven by at least one of four basic things: love, loss, vengeance, and profit. The last one is a bit cheap, though: who respects a guy who turns to crime just because he can't make his alimony payments?

Consider Magneto, who turned to villainy when his wife spurned him after he revealed his true self to her, and who became a self-appointed messiah for mutanthood.

Or The Mad Hatter, whose unrequited love for a woman named Alice whose unfortunate resemblance to the herione of Alice in Wonderland spurred him to obsessive, self-destructive behavior.

Paul Dini reimagined Victor Fries as a man whose love for his wife was boundless, and would do anything to save her when she became ill. At the hands of a cruel boss, he even sacrificed himself for her sake. Rechristening himself "Mr. Freeze", the frozen monster sought to punish Ferris Boyle for his crimes. Freeze, no good judge of character and blinded by love, made ruinous association after ruinous association--besides Boyle, there was an amusement park king who wished to live forever in a frozen utopia, an unscrupulous doctor who cured and later married his darling Nora, and many years later the ruthless billionare Derek Powers/Blight. The true tragedy of Freeze was that he was brilliant, but often naive.

Harvey Dent's decent into villainy is self-evident, but Dini added the possibility of redemption in a woman appropriately named "Grace". A tie-in comic, however, had Dent mistakenly believing, thanks to Joker's mind games, that Grace was cheating on him with his good friend Bruce. Two-Face escapes Arkham in a jealous rampage and tries to kill her. In the final panel, she bitterly declares their relationship over, and the tears stream down her face.

Scarecrow, in the original comics, targeted the regents responsible for his dismissal from Gotham University (this was somewhat muddied and lost in B:TAS; although his crimes often revolved around GU, he seemed to target random students or staff and behaved often more like a petty thief who happened to have a spiffy fear gimmick).

Arnold Wesker, son of a mob boss, lost his parents young to violence and was so traumatized he developed disassociative disorder (again, lost in B:TAS, so we never quite see just what made The Ventriloquist a socially retarded basket case).

Catwoman just gets off on stealing. She masqueraded as a philanthropist at first, and at times has her heroic moments, but she grew to like the life.

And from time to time you get clowns--like The Joker--who are simply unclassifiable. His crimes make sense to him and him alone, as Batman says in "The Laughing Fish". He's Charlie Manson cursed with a clown's face, and damn proud of it.

[wellington]

Haggis: A good list, but I've got a few more:

1. Pride. This dovetails well with revenge, but sometimes a proud villain will do evil simply because of an unwillingness to admit error. "It's not that I desire power or prestige. It's just that the world needs a hero - a new god, even. And I fit the bill pretty well."

The villain of the manga and anime Death Note is one of these guys; he wants to solve all of the world's problems by force and rule as a fearsome, but just, god. And John Milton's Satan isn't motivated as much by a desire to avenge himself upon God as he is driven by wounded pride.

Professional pride's a decent motivation, too. Yes, it might be easier and less risky to make a fortune by insider trading or embezzlement, but Mama always held the world for ransom at least once a year, and it would be shameful to let the family business go to seed.

2. Ambition. Goes well with pride and profit. Shakespearean villains might fall into this category.

3. Sadism. A good villain doesn't necessarily have to be cool or impressive. Sociopaths tend to be fairly pathetic. But they can make good villains, especially when the emphasis of the story lies squarely on the internal struggle of the hero.

4. Necessity. Suppose a villain needs to eat the still-beating hearts of superheroes to survive. Is having a villain be a villain by necessity, rather than choice, certain to kill the drama? I don't think so - a good villain can work by giving the hero a chance to explore his own sense of morality.

[archon_huskie]

Think about the villians that you find scary and ask why are they scary?


For myself these things make the best villians.

Skillwise they are on par with the hero. meaning that any fight results in a salemate or the slightest random advantage will give the villian victory.

Villian's actions are not predictable or rational, making planning a trap or any offensive difficult.

Villian does something creepy. Like the villian Omiopatia. This villian only speaks only by repeating the sounds he hears. If there is a dripping faucet nearby, he will only say "drip." While firing his gun, he will say "bang." When he punches, he says, "Pow." if his punch manages to break a bone, he'll follow it up with "snap." He doesn't explain why he does what he does. His motivation is unclear, he just likes killing vigillantees and their families.

Another creepy villian. The Gentlemen from the BtVS episode Hush. They say nothing at all, yet their mouths are forever shaped into an evil grin that shows all of their. Otherwise their behavior is as if they were proper English gentlemen, except when they are cutting out a person's heart. Oh and they don't walk, they float about 2 inches off the ground.

[Aasimar]

5. Telekinisis may seem common, but all the different creative uses are rarely explained.

6. Cannabalism, maybe he can steal people's powers by eating them.



Been watching "Heroes" have you?

[beejazz]

I just loooove makin' villains.

A hint: Think of a cross between Rasputin (a la Hellboy) and Shinji's dad in Neon Genesis Evangellion.

Have him manipulate the heroes to achieve his goals.

Because binding the demon was only step one in a bigger, badder plan.

[Haggis_McCrablice]

Is having a villain be a villain by necessity, rather than choice, certain to kill the drama? I don't think so - a good villain can work by giving the hero a chance to explore his own sense of morality.
The vampire is said to kill out of need; some come to enjoy it, while others are apalled by their unholy hunger, creating self-conflict and cognitive dissonance. Which is why Dracula fascinated me: I always thought he was a perfect Victorian allegory for veneral disease, which was rampant in Europe in Bram Stoker's time. Immoral and ravenous, the creature fed on the indigent, the prostitutes, and bored, wealthy sexual libertines like Lucy Westenra.

In a story called "Dark Hunger", from my first book, I dealt with a cat vampire who ate human pancreases because she suffered a very rare, hereditary form of diabetes metillius coupled with a lycanthropic element. After close to a century of this behavior to survive and keep her youth, she rationalized, and actually came to enjoy, her feed cycles. What made the story believable is how it mirrored actual cat behavior--they often hunt just for sport, play with prey, and when bored or not especially hungry, they will pass it off to another cat for the kill.

And many writers have been facinated with Rasputin, who has been featured in dozens of books, films, songs, and cartoons. He's come to achieve a legendary status. I always thought a truly interesting villain would combine elements of the mad monk and Baman's own Scarecrow: he merely looks into your eyes and leaves you soiling yourself in abject fear.

[beholder]

i cant beleive noone has mentiond giant's advice yet!
http://www.giantitp.com/articles/rTKEivnsYuZrh94H1Sn.html

as for creepiness, heres the thing that ALL people fear:helplessness
look at the gentlemen in buffy:damn scary
look at alien:scary becaause you dont know where it is(the unknown scares people as well)
little kids and dolls are always scary
my best villains were two children who the party took in, and when the party went to sleep, the children attacked.(they were ghosts)
and the just keep chanting
Ring aroud the rosey....
Pocketful of posy...

[Clover]

Wasn't that link right near the beginning?

[Closet_Skeleton]

Been watching "Heroes" have you?

Funily enough I don't even know what that is.

Isn't originality great.

[Grod_The_Giant]

He (whatever his name is) was a normal guy. Lived a peaceful existance, yada yada yada. Then the lords of Hell stepped in. They bound the soul of 9 mighty demons to him- granting him great power, but making him their pawn.

He patroled the streets as a hero at first. Soon, he started killing, for less and less serious offenses (like that The Batman episode where the joker tries to be batman). Finally, he becomes convinced that humanity is irredeemable, must be destroyed. He gives in fully to his demonic side. He sends magically strengthened thugs to steal sinister looking artifacts. He never talks much, never explains himself, just...acts...

Tips for art:

shadows. Rust colored metal, darkness, shadows everywhere.
keep him silhouetted at all times. But, make the silhouette noticibly diferent. glowing eyes are cliched, but good.
he should look human enough to have his origin clear, but still demonic. look at some pictures of Nightcrawler intimidating people for ideas (colored skin, angry face, tail, and so on).
anything around him should look blackened and tainted. Tips for behavior:

silent. Just gives cryptic instructions, with as few words as possible (i.e: 'initiate phase one,' and his henchmen blow up a fully occupied building)
doesn't go out of his way to kill, or to save. perhaps a scene where he steps over the chared remains of a baby and mutters 'life...who needs life' Powers:

look at the warlock class from the d&d book Complete Arcane. Give him enhanced strength and toughness, and the ability to fling really black, evil-looking fire. Let him channel that into sorcery of all types.

[beholder]

Wasn't that link right near the beginning?
well that was foolish of me. my apologies

[StudlyDuck]

A few things I like to do when making villains:

1. Give them a motivation that viewers can understand and relate to, while still being clearly wrong. Similar to, say, Raistlin or Magneto. Life kicks them often enough that it's expected that they strike back. On some twisted level, their actions are justified.

2. If you're going for scariness, retaining an air of mystery can help. The less the audience knows, the harder it is to predict what will happen, and that makes people feel helpless. Maybe open with a few horrific acts before revealing the responsible party.

3. Present situations where, even if the heroes win, they lose. If your villain can bind demons to him/herself, why not other creatures? Like, say, innocent bystanders. I'll admit, that's a bit of a cliche example, but it makes my point.

4. Petty motivations can be creepy if done right. Again, going back to the power of unpredictability. Obsession is freaky. You want a character who binds demons. Suppose he's willing to condemn his mortal soul just for revenge on a single person. How far are they willing to go just to satisfy their hatred? Granted, this one can be kind of tricky to do without making the villain seem pathetic.

[danielf]

i think a good villain must have some comic factors;

[Closet_Skeleton]

A good but hard to pull off alternative to the misguided villain is the villain who actually is right. A common example is the misanthropic villain who decides that humanity is evil. There are then muliple ways to take this.

He wants to kill all humans and only allow non-sapient life forms on earth. The problem with this is that he can turn into a crappy theme villain and an insult to Greenpeace members everywhere.
He wants humanity to evolve into a higher state, possibly by making everyone like him. Since many heroes are often reactionary this can be interesting if you manage to make the audience question whether or not the hero is on the side of good or just a conservative who's content not to change.
He believes that humanity can only flourish under his command. This is a fleshing out of the conquor the world style villain. A way to handle this kind of villain is to start with a standard villain and then think about what kind of policies you would want to put into practice if you ruled the world. The hero in this case may be a government agent trying to preserve the world order or just a civilian who likes the ideal of freedom. Interesting points to explore here is whether or not freedom is always the best thing. This doesn't work so well with creepy villains though. It can however disturb the audience when if they begin to identify more with the villain. A villain with honest intentions but a fearsome appearance breaks a major convention of comic books, that characters are drawn in a way designed to emphasise their personalities.

[Haggis_McCrablice]

A good but hard to pull off alternative to the misguided villain is the villain who actually is right.
His intentions are good, but his methods are questionable. One might do well to model such a villain after an actual person, and if you're a fairly good caricaturist, it can make for excellent social commentary. In BDC #8, I depicted Louis Farrakhan as a charismatic and outspoken Boston terrier who turns out to be an appalling and lascivious hypocrite behind the scenes (combining both the Nation of Islam leader's behavior and that of male dogs).


He wants to kill all humans and only allow non-sapient life forms on earth. The problem with this is that he can turn into a crappy theme villain and an insult to Greenpeace members everywhere.
Ah, the Poison Ivy model. She's obviously a fanatic with the seed of a good idea (no pun intended) but her means leave much to be desired. She has ostensibly reformed a few times, but always seems to go back to her--again, no pun intended--roots. I recall a comic in which she prepared a meal for two of Arkham's administrators, but slipped some poison berries in the salad that caused their throats to fatally swell shut.


He wants humanity to evolve into a higher state, possibly by making everyone like him.
This was Magneto 's m.o. in the first X-Men picture, although as I recall in the comics, for the most part, he played the part of a separatist--wanting humanity to simply leave him alone, if not just die altogether.


He believes that humanity can only flourish under his command. This is a fleshing out of the conquer the world style villain.
The Ra's al-Ghul model, who is so cold he calculates to the penny the cost in human lives of his Machiavellian schemes. Or to the lesser extent, The Brain, who isn't so much a villain but an incurable narcissist with an oversized noggin--a mouse with a Messiah complex. In fact, he's actually saved the world several times, from his former friend Snowball (who seems the Magneto to his Xavier), and other periodic threats like a brain-eating alien and a stupidity-causing dance craze, but his heroic accomplishments have gone largely unsung. I'd be frustrated too.

[wellington]

I think, by the way, that we should distinguish villains from monsters. Monsters have simple, animalistic motivations, generally. Villains are recognizably human in some way.

I think that the Gentlemen, who've been mentioned a few times, could have been played as villains. But they were basically monsters. Straightforward, inexorably persistent, intensely creepy monsters.

Which raises another question - do you always need a villain if a monster will do the job?

[Closet_Skeleton]

I think, by the way, that we should distinguish villains from monsters. Monsters have simple, animalistic motivations, generally. Villains are recognizably human in some way.

I think that the Gentlemen, who've been mentioned a few times, could have been played as villains. But they were basically monsters. Straightforward, inexorably persistent, intensely creepy monsters.

Which raises another question - do you always need a villain if a monster will do the job?

Well, basically you need some kind of adversary. However that can be a very loose concept. For example any of these would work:


What I believe Wellington is referring to as "the villain" type. He has his own plans and goals and the hero has to stop him. He may highlight some things about the hero by being a foil. An example would be Lex Luthor.
Wellington's "monster" type. A creature that is a danger due to natural urges or possibly insanity or Karmic binding. A good example would be Grendel in Beowolf.
An undisirable part of the protragonist. Used in transformational tales like My fair lady and also in the teen dramas based off them. These actually serve a very similar purpose to that of the villain.
A mentor can also furfill this roll. For example the father in the parable of the talents. This character type can be used as something almost indistinguisable from the typical villain but is often more domestic.As to whether a monster could do the job as well as the villain, it would be best to choose one and play to its strengths. A monster exists to be overcome to prove the hero's strength. When a hero kills a dragon and marries a princess its more about proving worth than saving lives. Like a sort of vision quest. A villain however has a more active roll and is better for forcing the hero to decide how he wants to be.

For example if you wanted a story about a vigilante who kills murderers. If the antagonist is a monster then the vigilante kills him and there's no real injustness. However if the hero is a villain you could use him to show the vigilante that his methods are immoral and make him no better than those he fights. It's about the author's image for where he wants to take the story.

[Dib]

yay :biggrin: cheers for all the replies guys! When the villain has complete history, abilities, personality ect all sorted out I'll post it... but for now... enjopy a silhouette piccy I made in Flash...

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/2196/hellknightvillainve2.png

[mixmastermind]

You could make it a large, troll-like creature that eats only whole coconuts as a means of sustenance. It could also be an incredibly intelligent troll, defying most stereotypes.

[Hannes]

Make him have a glass orb in the center of his chest. In his chest. Put the essence of the demon there. So on his chest is an always revolving kind of goo.

[Teal Kuinshi]

How about a villain who actually wants to be a villain? They weren't pushed to become one because of a harsh childhood or because they are so filled with hate that they need to destroy something. No, someone with a loving family who gets so sick of "if you try hard, you can be anything you want to be when you grow up!" and decides that, in that case, they'd love to become an infamous villain--not necessarily because they're evil, but because they can.

[nothingclever]

I personally believe one of the best ways to make and play a villian is to focus on how to entertain people consistently without actually thinking about the character's powers or capabilities.

Any character you make will probably already have a general copy of it somewhere so you should focus on how it will be presented instead of what it actually is. Your characer can be a generic superstength/endurance/invulnerability villian but if the dialogue and visuals used to describe it are good it doesn't matter how cliche it is.

[zeratul]

all I know is that he has bound the essence of a demon to himself, but don't know anything else...

sounds like ghost rider. Try not to go to mutch in that direction.

[Fri]

my favourite villains are the one that ambiguously evil. Yes, they're evil, but if you see from their point of view, they might not be evil!

Like... dunno, there's a lot of villains like that.

[Hydrargentium]

To organize my thoughts on villains for my own writing, I came up with the following:

How to create a great supervillain...

1. Need a reason for conflict with the heroes
- Magneto fights X-Men because of idealogical differences about human-mutant relations
- Ultron fights Avengers because he hates his creator (Hank Pym)
- Joker fights Batman because Batman caused his deformity, and because they are idealogically opposite (Joker is obsessed with committing outrageous crimes for the sake of criminality; Batman is obsessed with stopping crime, especially violent crime)
- Venom fights Spiderman because Peter Parker rejected the Alien Symbiote, and Parker got Eddie Brock fired over journalistic integrity issues
- Kingpin fights Daredevil because Daredevil interferes with his organized crime operations
- Doctor Doom fights the FF because of his rivalry with Reed Richards, and because he blames Richards for the accident that mangled his face

2. Need a big power (or set of powers) that offers considerable flexibility
- Magneto's powers are useful in almost any situation, and provide flight, protection, melee and distance attacks, strength (by manipulating metals) and sensory capabilities
- Ultron is almost unbreakable, can fly, is super-strong, has enhanced senses, and a powerful distance attack (plasma from mouth)
- Joker has no real powers, but his insane genius makes him dangerous, plus organizes and inspires loyalty in henchmen
- Venom is super-strong, can swing and jump for movement, is protected by a high agility, regeneration, and malleability, has sharp teeth, drains life energy to make himself stronger, and can attack at a distance with entanglement, plus has sneaky powers for surprise attacks
- Kingpin is an excellent combatant and big and strong as well, but his greatest power comes from his organization and business genius -- with such huge resources at his disposal, he can accomplish anything he wants, and hire anyone he needs
- Doctor Doom's armour gives him all the strength, protection, movement, senses and firepower he needs, but even more powerful is resources (leader of a country) and his intelligence (one of the smartest people on the planet)

3. Need something that makes them stand out (a hook, or a cool factor)
- Magneto is a Holocaust survivor, and his enemy's former best friend
- Ultron is a shiny robot, created for good, but turned evil (Frankenstein archetype)
- Joker is the Evil Clown who scares everyone, whether they admit it or not
- Venom is an alien/human symbiote, and knows all about Peter Parker/Spiderman because the alien used to be bonded with Spiderman (he also looks really cool)
- Kingpin is HUGE, and a snappy dresser as well (with that walking stick, and the flower in the lapel)
- Doctor Doom, aside from his alliterative name, also has his armour with it's cool, steel-rivetted mask

4. Need a weakness (but not easy to exploit)
- Magneto's weakness is his humanity, which he tries to deny
- Ultron was created by Hank Pym, so Pym knows about how he works
- Joker's greatest strength, his insanity, is also his weakness, making him too unstable to totally follow through with his schemes
- Venom's weaknesses are fire, sonic attack, and a juvenile desire for acceptance by Peter Parker
- Kingpin's greatest strength, his criminal organization, is also his weakness -- an organization that big can never run perfectly, and a single hero can slip through the cracks
- Doctor Doom's biggest flaw is his ego -- he believes himself smarter than anyone else, and therefore thinks he can make no mistakes (which he does)

5. Need to be able to beat foes on regular basis (no win is an easy win for the heroes)

6. Need to be able to come back from seemingly total defeat/death
- Magneto survived German death camps as a child, so he can survive just about anything
- Ultron, being a robot, has extra bodies hidden in storage around the world
- Joker is ultimately a coward, and will always give up the fight to come back and fight another day
- Venom's regenerative abilities keep him coming back time after time
- Kingpin's resources allow him to recover from just about any bad ending
- Ditto for Doctor Doom


There are three things to note about the above. First, this is raw, copied and pasted from my notes, so I apologize if it seems redundant or partly non-topical. Second, I primarily write superheroic fiction, hence the slant towards comic book villains and away from fantasy villains, but I believe this will all still apply. Third, there are no examples for #5, because, as I wrote in my notes further down the page (not otherwise included in this post): "It's all in the writing, baby!"

Hg

[Belphegor]

@DibtheBountyHunt: Hmm nice pics. Seems your going for some dark minion master, right? Some suggested of giving him glowing eyes but I suggest not to give him any eyes at all and make him fetish about the eyes. He could collect them as some sort of trophy. Let him see through some arcane way (for example he collects the eyes of his victims and places them all over his robes to see... something like a wannabe beholder). I think that his fetish for eyes could add a note of fear you want, because sight is humans most important sense.

[Mewtarthio]

Ability-wise, I find that mind-control tends to be one of the creepiest powers, assuming that the original victim is still recognizable on some level while in the villain's thrall.

[Karkadinn]

2. Need a big power (or set of powers) that offers considerable flexibility
- Magneto's powers are useful in almost any situation, and provide flight, protection, melee and distance attacks, strength (by manipulating metals) and sensory capabilities
- Ultron is almost unbreakable, can fly, is super-strong, has enhanced senses, and a powerful distance attack (plasma from mouth)
- Joker has no real powers, but his insane genius makes him dangerous, plus organizes and inspires loyalty in henchmen
- Venom is super-strong, can swing and jump for movement, is protected by a high agility, regeneration, and malleability, has sharp teeth, drains life energy to make himself stronger, and can attack at a distance with entanglement, plus has sneaky powers for surprise attacks
- Kingpin is an excellent combatant and big and strong as well, but his greatest power comes from his organization and business genius -- with such huge resources at his disposal, he can accomplish anything he wants, and hire anyone he needs
- Doctor Doom's armour gives him all the strength, protection, movement, senses and firepower he needs, but even more powerful is resources (leader of a country) and his intelligence (one of the smartest people on the planet)


*butting in where he's not wanted* Actually, in a general sense, I think broad special powers are a mental trap writers fall into to justify impressively labyrinthine plots and cool fight scenes. Don't we have enough villains with super strength, super agility, and genius-level intellect? The powers are useful for the sake of plot devices, making it easier to write out the story, but they also rob the villain of a lot of his uniqueness. Consider, for example, the antagonist from Saw. He's smart, but he's never displayed nearly inhuman levels of genius. No, he is in fact a totally helpless person when it comes to straightforward superhero-supervillain style confrontation... as a villain, all he can do is set elaborate traps for people and hope they fall for his mindgames and kill each other instead of him. He does this, not by being ridiculously intelligent, but by being intelligent in a way any of us could be with time and devotion, by being patience and cautious enough to pick just the right victims for the right traps, and anticipating the common sense results of his major actions. And we remember him all the more for it.
As you said yourself, the Joker has no real powers except for being smart, which is kind of a prerequisite if you want to be at all a threat to Batman.
Magneto certainly has broad abilities, but I would contend that he is a memorable and interesting character, not because of his powers, but because of his ostensibly noble goals and eloquent nature. If you gave, say, Bizarro Superman Magneto's powers, it would not made Bizarro Superman any more interesting.
If you give the villains powers with limited focus and strong thematic ties instead of more generic ones like the annoyingly ubiquitous super strength, then the villains are forced to think through confrontations and not just smash through everything in their way, which makes them both scarier and more sympathetic.
Most of the conversation's focused on comic book villains, but villainy has many forms. Take, for example, the Naruto anime, if any of you happen to watch Cartoon Network. It's not a great show, but it does make terrific use of the concept of limited, thematically interesting abilities. One ninja manipulates shadows to possess people who stand in them. That's all he does. Another manipulates sand, and doesn't get any nifty magical forcefields or flying abilities or whatnot like Magneto does for manipulating metal... he even has to carry his sand with him on his back to fight, and he's still a credible threat. Another yet commands a host of bugs, and is exceedingly creepy for all that a can of bug spray could probably take out his entire tactical repertoire. The show has like a million specific individual ninjas, but we remember almost all of them because their powers are so incredibly unique.
So yeah, this post might be a couple days too late, I only got around to reading this thread just now, but I really wanted to throw my vote in for wacky powers over generic ones.

[NecroPaladin]

Even though I play mostly self-justified evil characters, there's nothing wrong with a villain who knows he's evil and embraces it.

[Kidd of Steel]

I find that my favorite villain's are ones that reflect on the hero. So my question is what is your hero like? If you could take your villain and find one point in their developement that changed just slightly, that villain could be the hero. Look at some of the more popular choices on the list.

1. Magneto. Magneto reflects the best attributes of Professor X. They are both powerful, charismatic, socially motivated, leaders, and excellent judges of character and potential. You could easily see Magneto playing Professor X's role, and he has in several different storylines. You can easily accept Magneto abandoning humanity because of his internment. You can also just as easily see Professor X abandon humanity because of his upbringing with his stepfather and brother. It's only one choice that differentiates the two.

2. The Joker. The Joker reflects the determination and intelligence of the Batman. Joker latched onto the person who forced him into the vat of chemicals and became a twisted reflection of everything that person stood for. If instead of Batman, it was one of the gangsters who knocked him into the vat, the Joker would have become a vigilante force in Gotham City, fighting to ensure that no one would be used, tormented, and abandoned in the same way he was.

3. Dr. Doom. Doom is the smartest man in the Marvel universe. Doom is the ruler of a country, perfected time travel, is second only to the sorcerer supreme, and tricked the devil. However, he cannot abide Reed Richards. He cannot stand that Richards is surrounded by a family. If Doom had gotten the attention that Reed did in college, I could easily see Doom as the leader of a family of explorers who save the world on a whim.

So, what is your hero like? What made your hero into who he is? What basic choices does your hero make? Did your hero gain his powers in an accident, and if so could your villain gain them in the same accident?

Find what you love about your hero, and make that into what drives your villain.

[NecroPaladin]

The Ra's al-Ghul model, who is so cold he calculates to the penny the cost in human lives of his Machiavellian schemes. Or to the lesser extent, The Brain, who isn't so much a villain but an incurable narcissist with an oversized noggin--a mouse with a Messiah complex. In fact, he's actually saved the world several times, from his former friend Snowball (who seems the Magneto to his Xavier), and other periodic threats like a brain-eating alien and a stupidity-causing dance craze, but his heroic accomplishments have gone largely unsung. I'd be frustrated too.

Or Agent Smith from the matrix series. He confines mankind to a tiny side reality because apparently without he and the other agent's watchful eyes, all that humans do is "kill each other." And he's right.

[Beleriphon]

Paul Dini reimagined Victor Fries as a man whose love for his wife was boundless, and would do anything to save her when she became ill. At the hands of a cruel boss, he even sacrificed himself for her sake. Rechristening himself "Mr. Freeze", the frozen monster sought to punish Ferris Boyle for his crimes. Freeze, no good judge of character and blinded by love, made ruinous association after ruinous association--besides Boyle, there was an amusement park king who wished to live forever in a frozen utopia, an unscrupulous doctor who cured and later married his darling Nora, and many years later the ruthless billionare Derek Powers/Blight. The true tragedy of Freeze was that he was brilliant, but often naive.


To emphasize this point, the new Mr Freeze was so good that DC retconned the cartoon version into the comics.



Harvey Dent's decent into villainy is self-evident, but Dini added the possibility of redemption in a woman appropriately named "Grace". A tie-in comic, however, had Dent mistakenly believing, thanks to Joker's mind games, that Grace was cheating on him with his good friend Bruce. Two-Face escapes Arkham in a jealous rampage and tries to kill her. In the final panel, she bitterly declares their relationship over, and the tears stream down her face.


Havery in the comics is, or rather was, married. In fact it was in some way his wife's fault that he became Two Face. See The Long Halloween and Dark Victory for a more detailed explanation. But yes, Two Face is a wonderful villain by his very nature. You have to love the duality of such a character.

[The Dirge]

Pale skin makes for a distinctly evil apperence, so do masks.

[Nightwing]

i think you shuold try somthing that is a cross between etrigan and darth vader.

[Dib]

these are some very basic notes i just jotted down now... Ill expand on them soon...



Lost hearing in WW2 due to accident. Attempts to regain it through religious acts. Has seen this work before. Is told a way to help (given a book) him at a funky smelly (incense) goth (culty) shop thing. Accidentally conjures a demon and fuses it to himself to gain his hearing back. In return for regaining his hearing, his eyes are take from him. He must collect the eyes of mortals, in return the demon grants him the ability to see people’s auras which results in a sort of precognivity that allows him to know what is about to happen. Once he finds he has this ability he goes after the people who caused the accident that lost his hearing. Those who fight against him are killed and eyes are taken. Those who beg for forgiveness are taken as minions after their eyes are taken.


And cheers for all the help so far guys! Its great :biggrin:

[Dib]

1. Need a reason for conflict with the heroes

- the hero is trying to remove the demon from him because if it stays on earth it will kill more people in order to get what it wants.


2. Need a big power (or set of powers) that offers considerable flexibility

- minor pre-cognitive abilities as well as being brought back to prime-body condition due to demonic essence


3. Need something that makes them stand out (a hook, or a cool factor)

- he has no eyes, just flesh like any other part of the face


4. Need a weakness (but not easy to exploit)

- Not sure what this is yet


5. Need to be able to beat foes on regular basis (no win is an easy win for the heroes)

- he won't actual be seen on a regular basis, but will certainly kick back-side when he does show up


6. Need to be able to come back from seemingly total defeat/death

- He now knows how to bind demons to himself and enjoys the power. if beaten he can just strengthen the demon in him with more sacrifices or by summoning more demons



There are three things to note about the above. First, this is raw, copied and pasted from my notes, so I apologize if it seems redundant or partly non-topical. Second, I primarily write superheroic fiction, hence the slant towards comic book villains and away from fantasy villains, but I believe this will all still apply. Third, there are no examples for #5, because, as I wrote in my notes further down the page (not otherwise included in this post): "It's all in the writing, baby!"

Hg

that was brilliant! I would love to see the whole thing (or at least some more) if at all possible

[Mewtarthio]

- the hero is trying to remove the demon from him because if it stays on earth it will kill more people in order to get what it wants.

It's doable if you set it up right, but if you really want him to be the BBEG, you need to give him a personal beef with the hero.

Compare, for instance, the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus. Both are recurring Spiderman villains, both are insane, both are scientists, both are intelligent, both fight Spiderman simply because they hate Spiderman. The Green Goblin flies around in a Halloween costume throwing generic grenades everywhere (which Spidey has a tendancy to toss right back at him). Doctor Octopus has four metal tentacles grafted onto his back and likes to organize other villains to attack Spidey. The Green Goblin first appeared as an ordinary two-bit villain trying to take over the underworld (not Hell, just a bunch of gangs). Doctor Octopus first appeared as one of Spidey's earliest villains and was the first to show Spidey his own vulnerability when he trounced him easily in a fight.

And yet the Green Goblin is always seen as the greater threat. Why? Because he's the father of Harry Osbourne, Peter's roommate and friend. Because he knows that Spiderman really is Peter Parker. And, most importantly, because he killed Gwen Stacy. That gives Spidey a personal reason to fight him, not just because he's a badguy and that's what heroes do. Spiderman hates and fears the Green Goblin, because the Green Goblin is capable of destroying his life and has done so before. Compared to that, Doctor Octopus is a running gag.

Your hero needs a personal reason to hate this guy. It may come later in the story, but if you introduce him right off the bat as someone who is a threat to the hero himself it'll improve the first impressions. You said the accident took place during WWII; when does the story take place, and how old is your hero? If the numbers are right, this guy could potentially blame one of the hero's loved ones (a father or grandfather) for his accident and come seeking revenge. Compare:

The hero hears stories about a serial killer who mutilates bodies and tears their eyes out. So, being heroic, he decides to put a stop to it. He then encounters a very powerful eyeless man whom the hero cannot defeat. He barely escapes alive.
The hero hears stories about a serial killer who mutilates bodies and tears their eyes out. He could potentially investigate, but decides that these matters are best left to the police. One day, while visiting grandpa, a very powerful eyeless man bursts through the wall, demanding that grandpa die. The hero cannot defeat him, so he and grandpa barely escape.
The hero hears stories about a serial killer who mutilates bodies and tears their eyes out. He could potentially investigate, but decides that these matters are best left to the police. One day, while visiting grandpa, a very powerful eyeless man bursts through the wall, demanding that grandpa die. The hero cannot defeat him, and grandpa is killed. The hero barely escapes with the body to prevent it from being mutilated.
The hero hears stories about a serial killer who mutilates bodies and tears their eyes out. He could potentially investigate, but decides that these matters are best left to the police. One day, while visiting grandpa, he notices a large hole in the wall. He rushes inside and sees grandpa dead, his corpse mutilated, and his eyes missing.Now, that's just an example, and you don't have to use it (in fact, if it doesn't fit with the story you have planned, I reccommend you not use it), but try ranking those stories in order of which provides a more terrifying villain. Also note that, while all could explain why the hero hates the villain, you also need to provide the readers with a reason to hate the villain. Using the examples above, if grandpa is just a generic old guy who was never mentioned before, the readers will still feel empathy towards the hero. If grandpa is Grandpa, that lovable WWII veteran who always has nice cookies and good advice, the villain seems that much more evil.

[Elliot Kane]

I wrte this some time back. You may or may not find it useful:

Elliot's Villain Guide (http://elliotkane.proboards27.com/index.cgi?board=guide&action=display&thread=1112541674)

[JDMSJR]

If your villain follows these rules, he will be the most fearsome and unstopable villain of all time:smallsmile:

http://minievil.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

[Mewtarthio]

I wrte this some time back. You may or may not find it useful:

Elliot's Villain Guide (http://elliotkane.proboards27.com/index.cgi?board=guide&action=display&thread=1112541674)

Very nice. I like the other stuff on there, too.


If your villain follows these rules, he will be the most fearsome and unstopable villain of all time:smallsmile:

http://minievil.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

That should be required reading. Know the cliches to avoid. Everyone will lose suspension of disbelief if the villain leaves the hero alone in a deathtrap. Of course, don't literally create a villain that follows every rule in there: Most are just story cliches (eg the beautiful daughter who doesn't mind in the least when the hero kills her father).

[Elliot Kane]

Very nice. I like the other stuff on there, too.

Thanks :)

I've been writing for a while, albeit at an amateur level, and the guides are my (And my writing partner's, with the guides he wrote) attempt to share what I've learned. Some of them are definitely better than others, but I like to think none of them are terrible :)

[Attilargh]

If your villain follows these rules, he will be the most fearsome and unstopable villain of all time:smallsmile:

http://minievil.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
I prefer this one (http://www.sff.net/paradise/overlord.html#bad_lead), as it also contains advise for Evil Henchmen, Cultists and Trusted Lieutenants, among other things.

[Dib]

Now, that's just an example, and you don't have to use it (in fact, if it doesn't fit with the story you have planned, I reccommend you not use it), but try ranking those stories in order of which provides a more terrifying villain. Also note that, while all could explain why the hero hates the villain, you also need to provide the readers with a reason to hate the villain. Using the examples above, if grandpa is just a generic old guy who was never mentioned before, the readers will still feel empathy towards the hero. If grandpa is Grandpa, that lovable WWII veteran who always has nice cookies and good advice, the villain seems that much more evil.

As soon as I started reading that I thought of old Gramps... this could potentially work... but (if you check the 'your own hero/villain' thread thing, the Hero was pure evil and died and now works for Satan... but i could try and fit it in sorta... cheers :biggrin:

Also liking those sites, very cool... loved the 100 things one especially, some really funny stuff in there too