In a blog post I read, and I don’t remember where, I read about villains and how to improve or create them. One of the tips was to make them less human. I personally, and don’t shoot me, disagree.
I think there’s a certain level of evil that can make your villain believable, but I want a relate-able villain. That sounds really twisted, but let me explain. If a villain is too evil, I feel distanced. I can’t put myself in their shoes and understand why they want to do this. If you think about it, all villains pretty much think they’re doing the best thing, due to twisted life experiences or a mental problem. Let’s look at a few villains.
Voldemort, fanpop.com
In Harry Potter, there is Voldemort. This is a very iconic character, and he almost seems like he has no connection with us. But when you think about it, he was very much human. He was a young boy in an orphanage who needed care like everybody else. He went to school, like everybody else. He had friends, like everybody else. The only difference? He had a high dosage of curiosity and cunning, which drew him to immortality and horocruxes.
In the Shiver trilogy, there are many complication factors, but probably the biggest is Tom Culpeper. While he doesn’t listen and just, in the reader’s eyes, a plain jerk, he has understandable reasons behind what he does. (There’s no picture available. The trilogy isn’t a movie :(.)
President Snow, hypable.com
In Hunger Games, President Snow, while malicious, is very obviously human. He’s understandable. He has a grand-daughter (I forget if this was actually in the book), suffers from sores in mouth (caused by other things) and struggles. He’s just… evil. But he’s not so evil that he distances himself from the reader. He’s, personally, my favorite character of the entire trilogy, besides Peeta, because he’s such a gosh-darn amazing character. Thank you Suzanne Collins.
Jeanine Matthews, hypesphere.com
In Divergent (I know, touching on the super-popular ones), Jeanine Matthews is the main villain for most of the books. While she’s pretty despicable, she’s also very human. When faced with someone who’s threatening your way of life, everything you know and love (AKA the society), it’s pretty normal to lash out. If we’re looking at it from her point of view.
Loki, denverpost.com
And, *drumroll*, for the most loved villain probably ever, Loki! Oh, Loki, the evil mastermind. But was he always evil? Like all of these villains listed, they weren’t necessarily evil from birth. Changes around them, or flaws in their own hearts and desires led them to be bad and “despicable”. And this is true for Loki. He was a kind soul who’s like feel apart the second he learned that he was part Frost Giant. He goes from there to take over the world, kill people, and look pretty darn awesome while doing it. You wonder why we love him. Because under all that bad lies a heart of gold that was just tainted. #lokigirl4eva
Loki meme, car-memes.com
But how do you make a not-to-evil but still believable villain? In the case of Voldemort, his downfall was his curiosity and desire for immortality. But say someone came along, maybe a girl because we’re going to be cliched, and saved him from himself? I think a good test to see if your villain is too evil is to try to create a (or look at their) backstory and find a way that he could’ve been good. If you can relate to what they went through, or who they are, and can see them being redeemed, then you have someone believable!
But, if they still need to be bad. Born to be bad, baby. And so I’ve linked a blog here (http://www.betternovelproject.com/blog/novel-villain/). It may seem to contradict everything I’ve said, but there’s a fine line between relatablility, and being purely evil. I find that post has many amazing points about villains. Check it out!
Now, this is all just my opinion. But as a reader, personally I desire an evil character. Someone I can understand and comprehend. If they’re too evil, I myself tend to check out. It makes it all the more gripping if you can see the same thing happening to your character, or to yourself.
Now, if someone could write a book from the villains perspective, that would be fantastic!
With love, Ms. Beka Mae
characters she wrote 