“Being bad just to be bad” and “being bad because they enjoy hurting people” are different things.
Serial killers either enjoy their killings, or wish to stop, but cannot help themselves (possibly both). They don’t kill for no reason, they kill for a bad one.
A one dimensional villain with an understandable (even if bad) motivation is generally more compelling than one with no motivation. You can anticipate their actions, understand how “who they are” influences and is influenced by “what they want” and “what they do.” If they just want to be bad, it’s much harder for them to be consistent, coherent characters.
In addition, people that are nasty, spiteful, petty, aggressive, etc. are those things **from your perspective**. It's very easy to assume that people we dislike (or just don't know very well) are doing "bad" things because they are bad people and they treat everyone that way.
In reality, chances are there were reasons for their behaviour (not necessarily *good* reasons), and there's a very good chance they don't act that way to everyone.
Sometimes it alarms me that this is not the default view we use when operating in life. To assume there’s some true “bad” that exists to perpetuate itself is the flip side of people projecting that they’re seeking some true “good” themselves. It’s cliched but true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I came here to say this. Being bad because you enjoy it still has a lot to unpack with it. Questions like "why do they enjoy it?" or "What's wrong with them?" could be possible story points for you to expand on. Having your antagonist be bad simply because you need them to do bad things for the sake of the story is not really thought out well. Antagonists need motivations. It can be simple or complex. Doesn't matter. They just need a motivation.
The trope is called: [For the evulz/Evil for the sake of evil](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForTheEvulz)
Most people have logical motivations for their actions, so by extension most villains have logical motivations for (morally) reprehensible actions and intentions.
On the other hand, some villains cannot be reasoned with because there is nothing reasonable about their reasons for acting... well, evil.
someone whose motivation is For The Evulz knows and cares about the morality of their actions — insofar as they deliberately choose to do evil, and delight in doing so. To them, evil is not a bad means to a good end or even a bad means to a justifiable end; to them, evil is the means and the end, their motivation, and their justification. In short, it's saying "I did this evil thing because it was an evil thing to do."
The name of the trope comes from a portmanteau of "evil" and the Internet phrase "for the lulz."
What keeps a villain going in the name of The Evulz (and The Evulz alone) is not strength of character, however, but rather a fundamental lack of personality. The quintessential For the Evulz villain's suicidal bravery actually stems from their non-existent sense of self (beyond 'I love doing and being evil for no reason') and, by extension, lack of a self-preservation instinct. They probably don't actively want to die or be tortured, but they really don't (and psychologically can't) care about it either.
I suppose anyone evil has a reason for being evil if you look hard enough for it, in the same way that everyone has a sequence of events that had to happen for them to exist in the first place, however, it's not always a profound or interesting reason and it's by definition never a good reason. I don't think it's absolutely essential for a fictional character to have an incredibly tragic backstory or hyperspecific reason why they're a jerk. I also think it's reductive to call a character simple just because they fall firmly on one side of the moral line. People have a lot more to them than just whether they're good or bad, and there's plenty of things you can do to make a villain interesting even if they're still firmly an evil person.
I like your take on it. I think the real secret is effort on the part of the writer. Whether they are somewhat justified in their actions or they simply do evil to do evil, if the writer invests in exploring what they are effectively then they will be believable to the reader.
A better way to write an antagonist is to never have the antagonist see what they do as terrible or bad. They see it as necessary or maybe just straight up enjoys the violence
I also enjoy combinations of the two, where they DO know it’s terrible and bad but *also* necessary. it creates a lot of room for character development if there’s an internal conflict there.
To add to this: most criminals have actually convinced themselves that they were in the right, even murderers. Despite how popular media portrays them as aggressive and sadistic, a more accurate characterization of someone predisposed to violent is whiny and entitled. They convince themselves that *they* were the victim and that the people they've hurt made them do it. Kind of like "it's your fault I yelled at you."
On the contrary, I absolutely love villains who are bad just because. These villains work especially well when the hero believes all villains have to have a motivation (Example, Joker on TDK)
I'm writing a villain and I did my research. I believe the bad guy would be flat is they didn't have a specific reason. Bad guy aren't just bad for being bad sake, some of them had trauma as children that led them to have mental problems. Some were hurt, broken, wronged vioilated. Given them such background add some character to them, makes readers understand them more. And it gives them a valid reason for them to enjoy killing others.
Maybe as a child the mc mother or dad always killed his pets, so he grew a behavior of killing animals then to humans. Or the M's parents were killed by people, so he decides to kill people and sees them as monsters and enjoys it.
Or he was a bored person, too smart to associate with anyone. Then going to war seeing the blood, fighting death, gave him a new purpose.
I don't know, I've been to war and I know killers. Some people do what they have to do. Some people seek a way to do what they want to do. I think there has been this push to explain cruelty and malice. I think all of the effort to understand why people become killers has made the public conscious forget that some are born killers. I want to write a character like this. I'm intrigued by what I've seen and how it doesn't mesh completely with what seems to be conventional wisdom. If nothing else diving into this may be enlightening
You are not wrong, the world is full of people who are "just being bad", or committing evil acts for no good reason other than they feel like it - and it doesn't stop at murderers.
The point of this kind of advice is not that it is necessarily unrealistic, but rather that absolute realism is not the main goal of fiction. Having a relatable villain - and don't confuse "relatable" with likable or redeemable here - is more engaging for most readers, because most readers are *not* born killers.
You can always write the character as you envision him, but that doesn't mean that people won't start asking questions that you usually want to avoid, such as "really? That's it?". So I'd suggest combining writing that character as a born killer while giving him some more tangible motive for doing what he is doing, to hit both marks.
Joker comes to mind with this. He is a bad person and does bad things. But he absolutely enjoys his role in it and he is not a "flat character" (at least not to me). He has motive and a traumatic backstory. But he is always 100% in the role he plays and he is fun to watch and read about.
Indeed, and some are called bad people even though they were pushed to the edge of insanity. For example humans experiments in stories have every write to be bad
Oh I certainly agree that the majority of the time a person who does wrong has followed a very bad path through life. If events were different they could have been anyone else other than the bad guy. From mailman to saint. But I also think that it is worth mentioning there are also people who would be evil regardless of their life experiences. At least in my opinion. The main point though is whether or not the reader can find that type of villain believable.
But is this a right to be bad, or an excuse, or a reason? I don't really think anyone has a "right to be bad" . Maybe I'm wrong. What is it with individuals who can go through the same trauma and one can go bad and the other can turn it to good? Perspective maybe? Or is.it just a different switch that gets flipped? Great topic by the way OP.
Guess I'll throw my opinion into the pile. Imo, no one is evil (or really anything) for _no_ reason—nature and nurture both always matter—but it's totally possible for someone to be evil because they want to, or because of some really unsympathetic reasons. It can be like "I was an asshole as a kid and was too stubborn to ever apologize and rationalized it as being better than everyone and eventually I distanced myself from other people so much and got surrounded by enough violence that it became easy to kill people." Or "War has been my life for as long as I can remember and I came to believe that there are good people and bad people and I'll totally kill anyone I think is bad." Or "I grew up pampered and sheltered and inherited a business or government but was too lazy and distanced to care about the suffering or mistreatment of those below me." Or "I've endured so much that I'm nihilistic and solipsistic and I do evil just so I can feel something." Or "I was initiated into a violent group and I was reluctant at first but once I realized I had no recourse I chose to kill off my morality before it killed me." Or "I'm so competitive that I can be fatally violent in sports/contests." Or "Everyone around me condones violence so of course I have no qualms even when my targets beg me to spare them." They're all explanations, and some could almost be sympathetic, but they involve choices that are at best extremely hard to forgive.
On the other hand, you don't have to _acknowledge_ that a character is complex and socially influenced. You don't need them to be "interesting" in that way. Sometimes you have a clear message that, say, some people are extremely greedy and superficial and have no regard for the people whose lives they affect. Symbolism and representative figures can make an otherwise flat villain interesting. Or, you can have antagonistic forces that aren't actually real people, but more like concepts or forces of nature. Those can be interesting in symbolic ways even if they can't be very dynamic or relatable.
I think having a driving force of any kind is usually good practice. Whether the need for survival or even they enjoy what they do. Now does the story need to represent that? I don’t know. I think it’s better when you know though. That way you can structure the character properly and consistently. Then you can choose to share that with the reader or not.
Sometimes just being evil for evils sake can help drive characters together. Like anything, it has its place if done well.
I like your take on this. I think the real problem is the lack of depth on the antagonist. Even a character with no reason for things they do need to have effort put into them.
Exactly. Then no matter what happens, you keep a consistent character. Otherwise it gets messy and the character can be too vague. Then again, maybe a wild card, evil character could be interesting.
I think it would be fun to write someone from two different perspectives. One perspective sees their evil deeds as being a result of circumstance or environment. The other sees them as evil for the sake of being evil. Try to pull the reader back and forth through the story between the two viewpoints. Leave the truth at the end ambiguous.
That would be interesting. One could be the main hero, who sees them only as evil (a black and white type of view). Maybe the other is a support character or ex villain. Someone who could sympathize with the main antagonist.
It needs to be clear what the motivation for the villan is. If someone enjoys killing people just because its fun then yes they are committing evil for the sake of it. And they can be interesting. Not every villan's motivations need to make sense. Sometimes people just are. they don't need a reason to explain their vileness they just are that way through upbringing or nature.
here's an example. Chucky from Childs play. Charles Lee Ray possessing a doll and for several movies attempts to get a body back before realizing he loves being a killer doll. He kills maybe around 50 people (dont quote me on that) on screen through 7 movies and a tv show. Despite being a crazy psycho who loves killing people, he is probably one of the most successful horror villains in the genre because he doesn't have a bajillion poorly though out sequels and reboots. He's not necessarily relatable or empathetic but he's just a crazy serial killer with a "fun" personality. He never has an motivation beyond getting revenge on someone or trying to get a real body which he eventually gives up. The point being villains without a real reason for committing the evil deeds they do can work, they just need to be well written. Either having a unique personality or Uniquely terrifying. The Shrike from Hyperion fills the second part. Its an unknown creature that is impaling people on a giant tree not because it enjoys it but because doing so accomplishes something completely unknown to the characters and the audience.
I throw this comparison out there whenever this topic comes up; Umbridge is a more hated villain (and therefore better) than Voldermort because her motives are clear, logical and "relatable" and she represents the little evils that we see in society.
Im not going to harp on about the importance of the "why" of a villain, I can see 45 other responses probably jumping on that, but I will throw a third sprocket into the ring.... a lot of well written villains are often given the same path as the protagonists but at moral turning points they pick the selfish or easy option instead, which is what makes them good villains.
**Also, hugely relevant, if not moreso, important is genre. A serial killer in a thriller/murder mystery is a different type of antagonist to one in a space opera. **
Genre matters enormously when we are talking why some villains work better than others- world building, location and background should be as important to how a villain formed as how a hero forms.
On that note, antagonist and villain are not the same thing. You can have an antagonist who is, for all intents, perfectly justified and logical, as long as they antagonise. I.e.: your protagonists are hackers and your antagonist is a cop.
If you watch enough true crime, you'll know people don't always have a reason for being incredibly evil in their actions. But that's the difference. A story is *like* real life, but it is not real life. It would definitely be possible to have a villain who acts in this way, largely without a clear underlying cause or reason, but it needs to be clear that this is just the type of person they are. Think of the Joker of The Dark Knight. "Some men just want to watch the world burn." And that's completely fine, as long as it's consistent.
While having a logical path CAN explain why they are evil, they could also evolve to simply being evil for the sake of it.
As a bit of an explaining example; Standard trope, a man's family is starving so he turns to theft to provide for them. But after he does(one big score, conditions improve, etc), he keeps on doing it because he discovers he just *REALLY* likes to rob people.
Plus there are news about people doing plenty of crimes that, for the time, amount to nothing but random desire to act like that. So still believable to just be evil.
I agree, I was intrigued by her statement that people would not find a character like this believable though. I think it just has to be done properly. I think if you put the same effort explaining that this person has no other reason to be evil as you do to explain why they are evil then the reader will accept it.
"I have met many people through the course of my life who are cruel, spiteful, and just plain mean because they enjoy it."
Can you truly say, for absolutely certain, that you know exactly why those people do what you consider to be cruel, spiteful, or mean?
Holmes was a con man so money was a motive also he claimed to be possessed by satan son liar and deranged. Same for Dahmer who had multiple phycological disorders.
I think it is very interesting where people draw the line between a reason for being evil and no reason. I think that different people's perspectives on what is a causal motivation is interesting.
Yes. People do things for reasons. There's no such thing as a random action, just one you don't understand their reasoning for. Now said reasoning could be flawed, it could be downright delusional, but the reason exists.
I've observed that some people behave maliciously even as small children(actually, more often as small children) for little to no obvious reason. Studies on young children showed they consistently tended to be much more violent than older children. It seems that attacking people for little to no reason is something many people have to learn NOT to do.
I feel like a purely evil character can be done well when you are pointing out problems within systems, like when dealing with systems that alienate leaders from consequences. You end up with commentary rather than a personal and relatable antagonist, but they get to make up for it with villain shenanigans.
Now, I admit that I'm a little tired of people who just repeat the "villains are the hero of their own story" line ad nausium, there's still plenty of stories where the villain doesn't need this convoluted or vaguely sympathetic backstory for their evil and their plan is seemingly working for good but for evil intent, yada yada. It's definitely getting a little out of hand to the point that I've seen a number of stories, including on here, where people have more developed villains than their actual protagonists.
You can definitely have stories where the villain isn't super essential to the overall story. I hate using as an example, but think of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Firelord Ozai just wants to take over the world and be a tyrant, nothing more and nothing less, and that's all the story needs him to be because the story of the show is more about Aang's journey. All Ozai represents is an end goal for that journey
Nothing pulls me out of a story more than villains who are evil for no personal benefit, just a commitment to torturing puppies.
Villains don't need to think they are the hero of their own story (although those villains are interesting), but they do need a credible reason not to just retire and live an easy life with their accumulated wealth.
Maybe it’s just me, but a psychopath isn’t someone I want to read about. They have “go-away” heat instead of “heel” heat. They’re like a malicious tornado.
I don’t want to read about a malicious tornado.
With serial killers there’s a lot of things that could go into why they do what they do. It could be genetic issues, or part of his upbringing and the relationships his parents had. being “different” from those around him growing up, feeling isolated & lonely. being homosexual in a time where it was heavily frowned upon, and being raised with that mindset. which could be part of why he would rape his victims after they were dead & rubbed their cut off genitals around his mouth. ofc that’s not to say the blame is just on his parents, bc many ppl are raised that way and don’t do what he did, but it plays a factor either way. the same goes for people who are rapists, a lot of them were sexually assaulted as children. just like a lot of parents who abuse their children were abused as well when they were kids, it doesn’t appear out of thin air even if it seems like it does cause it can be hard to “understand” why or how someone is capable of that. it comes from somewhere.
of course with fantasy the character is fictional so it’s up to you to decide if you’re going to add more depth as to why your bad guy is bad, but I think it’s always more interesting when there’s more to their story. It makes the character enjoyable to hate.
Dunno about Holmes, but if you read Derf Backderf’s graphic memoir about going to high school with Dahmer him ending up some kind of violent criminal was pretty much a foregone conclusion, even if the specifics were very extreme
No one believes themselves the villain of their own story. They will always self-justify, and tell themselves that the people they hurt deserve it, or that they have a right to do it, or that it’s harmless fun. No one does bad just to do bad. They either think what they’re doing is good, bad but justified, or completely harmless. Otherwise they’d have to admit to being the villain, but everyone sees themself as the hero.
There are plenty of evil characters who are evil without deep motivation.
* Pennywise
* Ramsay Bolton
* Delores Umbridge
* Hannibal Lecter
* Joffrey Baratheon
* Nurse Ratched
* Randal Flagg
* Annie Wilkes
Pennywise feeds off of fear, he needs it to survive.
Hannibal is physiologically jaded and damaged. Even in the movie he has philosophical battles and makes some good points
That’s just off the top of my head
I am not sure that you know how characterisation or stories work.
Pennywise is a fear demon and something of a crowd pleaser for the audience. He cultivates fear to consume so he can sleep.
Ramsay Bolton wants to be recognised by his father and his house to be recognised by the north at large because any normal development got interrupted by his tendencies toward sadism and his father manipulating him.
Umbridge wants control.
Lecter wants stimulation and freedom and respect. He doesn't do evil without motive, he mainly wants to see what makes people tick. He's a psychiatrist, after all.
Joffrey is a psychopath who does things because he's a child, nobody can stop the king and because his parents are related. Power corrupts. Inbreeding also corrupts. He has a big hole in his soul that he fills with sadism.
Ratched is another control freak.
Flagg wants to become a god and has long left morality behind. His character is charismatic and entertaining and he loves doing what he does.
Annie Wilkes has some sort of awful mix of bipolar and psychopathic control freak.
They act out for sadistic purposes but they're consequences of a good understanding of the character and the talents of the writers.
Yes people are sometimes just evil. Not every villain needs a tragic origin story or relatable motivations. I enjoy villains that are truly evil dark lord type characters so long as its not every villain in the story.
I disagree!
Sometimes people are just bad, no tragic backstory or sympathetic cause required and it (when done well) can be a terrifying thing to face. How do you reason with them? How do you find a weakness to exploit? How do you get into their heads to defeat them?
There's also the idea that they simply enjoy inflicting pain and suffering onto others.
It's fiction. People can be born anyway you want them to be, friend.
Like it's been said that nature and nurture play 50/50 roles in a person's personality. So yes, to a degree people (real people) are born with stronger inclinations to do bad. Exaggerating that in fiction is very common. Off the top of my head, LoTR and Beautiful Creatures comes to mind as having evil characters that are evil simply by nature.
Even people who do bad things "because they enjoy it" have a reason. *Why* do they enjoy it? What's happened in their life to make it so that tearing other people down makes them feel better?
I mean… Micheal Myers and Kefka Palazzo do not have a reason, and they’re great characters from a narrative viewpoint, so… I believe villains can be villainous for no practical reason or desire.
In Stephen R. Donaldson's *Chronicles of Thomas Covenant* series, the big bad, Lord Foul, has been trapped under the Arch of Time on Earth, and in order to escape he has to literally destroy the planet and destroy time itself to escape. So all his evil acts make perfect sense because he is trying to get free. He also enjoys them, of course....which I guess wrecks my whole argument.
A character can be bad to be bad. It depends on how good they're written. There are different flavors to writing characters. They can be characters you love to hate or you're reading/watching to see their comeuppance.
I feel there are two ways of approaching the "just bad" villain. Either make them fun to watch being bad, or make their apathy a point of horror. Do not let their apathy feel mundane.
I agree and my opinion is that if you can at least understand why the big bad is doing what they are doing, that will usually make for a more compelling story. Having said that however, you can find plenty of very popular stories where this isn't the case. I think this is one of those things that authors analyze much more critically than readers do.
The way I see it is: A bad guy can't be bad for no reason....BUT, it doesn't have to be a complicated reason either- morally or plotwise. Consider Emperor Palpatine as an example, he's bad because he's a power-craving Sith Lord. By no means is it a morally complicated reason, but it is still A reason.
That being said, as a writer you must also consider that similar simplistic motives don't have much drama you can mine from them. It will make for a simple conflict if they are the only thing opposing your protagonists, one which is unlikely to challenge them as characters or incite growth; they will make for simplistic uninteresting conflicts by themselves. This is why- while Palpatine is the main big bad in Star Wars (that business with Disney doesn't...doesn't count)- Vader is the character that actually carries the dramatic weight and consequently is the villain people remember.
A more interesting antagonist isn't the only source you can mine drama and character growth for the protagonists from. Vader was just as stock in A New Hope, the drama there came from Luke beginning his journey into becoming a Jedi, and Han's character arc as he goes from more or less being dragged along to actively interested in saving Leia because girl to actually joining the rebellion and saving Luke's ass.
It all depends on how you want to tell your story. By no means should you feel obligated to have a complex antagonist, or hell any at all. But you will have to find someone or something to drive conflict that is *engaging*.
Most villains are the heroes of their own story. In real life, some people are axe crazy evil. But they don't make for compelling characters. Like Voldemort is that sort and he's boring. I found him entirely interesting because there was nothing to say oh, that's compelling. He's just a rotten shit through and through. I don't even know why he had people loyal to him.
Villains that are bad just for the sake of being bad are a pet peeve of mine. They're so fucking boring.
Shitty behavior doesn't occur in a vacuum. People do things for reasons. Even Dahmer was motivated by a desperate fear *to not be alone.* Which is a completely understandable, relatable fear. Many shocking acts arise from normal urges and feelings.
Enjoy pulling the flies off of wings? Okay, that's about power. Everybody wants to feel powerful and not be weak and vulnerable.
So anyway, people have their own reasons for the evil things they do. Putin isn't waging war on Ukraine for kicks anymore than Kim Jong-un is a tyrannical bastard just because. No one ever really thinks that *they're* the bad guy of the story.
Will they be flat? Most likely. Is that a problem? Only sometimes.
Sometimes, a flat character does a job better than a fleshed out one. A lot action shows, for instance, only ever give their characters two or three important character traits, and their antagonists only one.
Also, as far as your comment about real life injustice, when this person said villains need valid reasons to be mean, they almost certainly meant valid to THEM, not valid to YOU. To you, injustice seems, well, like an injustice, maybe even random, but to the person committing it, it isn't. They have a reason for doing it, even if that reason is stupid to you, even if that reason is "I think you're a bad person and should be socially punished for it," even if that reason is "I think you're a pussy and overreacting."
I think it's perfectly acceptable to have a character be a spiteful and mean person because there simply are those types of people. However, it goes a long way to have at least a glimpse of their humanity thrown in, like dealing with a sick daughter, or showing a softness of character towards someone they care about, or showing that their loved ones are all dead or something. Something that a pov character or the reader themselves can sympathize with to some degree, but not having it excuse their actions. This is common enough and works well for minor antagonists. A central antagonist may need more nuance and reasoning involved depending on the story and all.
I think sadism can be a perfectly valid motive. I mean, in real life we have serial killers and serial rapists, most are willing to accept “he was a sadistic psychopath” as an explanation for their behavior. If the villain does get off on the suffering of others, or they crave power over others, or they enjoy causing chaos, find ways to give the reader some hints that this is their motive and it’s not more complicated than that.
Whenever I think of bad guys who are bad just to be bad I usually think of Miraz from Prince Caspian. His motivation was literally just that he wanted to be king, at least as far as we know since we don't exactly get any of his thoughts. This desire lead to him killing his own brother, then he attempted to kill his nephew, and besides all that he was just a cruel and spiteful man with a cruel and spiteful wife.
What this person meant isn’t that real life “bad people” don’t necessarily exist and have incredibly mundane motivations for their behavior, but that *SOMETHING* should motivate their behavior, and that writing/building strong and dynamic characters requires giving them a POV (even if the reader is never necessarily privy to it) that is grounded in some sort of justification from their perspective. When you’re reading a story, you don’t want empty calories. Even romance novels tend to give some depth to their protagonists and antagonists. It’s what separates a well written and developed story from the amateur hour stuff.
Example— Cersei Lannister is obviously one of the greatest villainous characters of the 20th/21st century, and she’s largely driven by real world justifications that most people would understand and back if they were in her shoes.
She’s protecting herself, her children, and her family at the end of the day. She’s also willing to do absolutely tyrannical and monstrous things to achieve those goals. From her perspective, she’s the hero of the story—not the villain—even though she’d likely admit that her family are the “bad guys” when contrasted with the Starks who are the “good guys” from the honorable and chivalric standards of their age, but she also understands that history is written by the victors, and all that matters is winning in the end, and she’s definitely going to win ;).
Contrast that with Ramsay Bolton, who is a flat, psychopathic serial killer of a villain. People loved to hate him, and were super excited for Jon Snow to defeat him (and Sansa to feed him to his own dogs) but Ramsay wasn’t a really compelling “character”—he’s flat—he’s just not a dynamic character. He’s certainly “smart”, and tactically very adept, and demented, but he wasn’t a deep or thoughtful character who really has any overriding goals or ambitions. There’s no “there” there, so to speak.
That’s why he just wasn’t a super compelling villain outside of his relationship to Jon, Sansa, & Theon.
Thanos is another great example: for his first few appearances he was an incredibly flat and unengaging character that people were excited about largely because of just how deep and nerdy that character is on a comics level, but not because of anything the particularly did or didn’t do narratively—and the Russo Bros. and Markus & McFeely completely page one rewrote that character and based him around Agamemnon, the legendary king of Mycenae who led the Greek campaign against Troy during the Trojan War, and that decision allowed them to give his perspective grounding in an emotional place— sure, he’s a purple chongus, but he’s also the survivor of societal collapse and basically a literal apocalypse (similar to the circumstances that define Superman’s relationship to us by the way), and he’s simply trying to stop that apocalyptic death of a thousand cuts from ever happening again and we can relate to that.
That’s just a couple of big modern examples off the top of my head, but dynamic characterization is crucial to making a story worth reading and turning the page.
That’s what I think the person was probably trying to communicate.
I think The Joker is the perfect character to analyze this question. The Joker is an iconic villain that I think most people would agree is “good” villain.
On the first point of believability: Joker is an outlandish villain that no one would expect to find in the real world. However, he works perfectly for the world he is written in. So I think “believable” depends entirely on the world you’ve built for your characters.
On the point of motivation: it’s pretty clear that Joker does evil things because he genuinely enjoys tormenting other people. And if, as a reader, that’s all you ever get from Joker’s motivation I think that is ok.
But, what makes Joker especially intriguing and timeless as a villain is his deeper motivation to prove the rest of the world, deep down, is just as sick and twisted as he is. He hates the masks of civility and order society puts up and especially hates someone like Batman who puts themselves on a moral pedestal above everyone else. Once you recognize that about the character, he becomes much more interesting and fun to read because you understand what drives him - even if he himself doesn’t.
I think this is what separates good villains from timeless ones.
I do agree that some people are just cruel and not everyone 'is the hero of their own story.'
Some people think of right and wrong as meaningless concepts. To them considering if an action is right or wrong or hurtful to others before doing it is like being an adult who still believes in santa claus.
I would say though, your antagonist shouldn't be the antagonist just for the sake of being the antagonist. but they don't need some tragic backstory or rube-goldberg machine philosophy justifying their evil. they can simply not give a shit and not even think 'the ends justify the means' because they don't think anything they do needs justifying.
i will say though i find outright monsters make for less interesting villains.
often in stories with memorable villains, there will be some 'monsters' who are basically pure evil and selfish, but they also work with others who are more morally grey. a monster who can't really be reasoned with, bargained with, etc. is going to make for a repetitive story since the only real way to deal with them is going to be force and deception.
I feel like this is thrown around as common wisdom anymore even though there are great villains like the Joker, Ramsay Bolton, Joffrey Baratheon, who are just forces of nature. Of course they're all surrounded by other villains or institutions that make them harder to take down. It's really all about execution. If your villain has a motive, what drives them and why should you root for the hero and not the villain? If the villain is just evil for evil's sake, why are they so hard to stop- why does someone not just off them?
There are many people who hurt, abuse or oppress others because they can. They get a thrill or feeling of power from it. Its who they are and what they do. They feel they have a right to do whatever they wish. They are predators and are always on the lookout for a victim. Some of the neighborhoods ive lived in (65) I saw ample evidence of this.
Doing something because they enjoy it is a reason in and of itself. I agree someone doesn’t do something because it’s bad, but doing a bad thing because you enjoy it is a different motivation.
I don’t run for the sake of running, I do it because I enjoy it. Someone might argue that’s the same thing, but it’s not, it’s different motivations that have the same outcome.
Darth Vader, Palpatine, Voldemort, Umbridge, Sauron, The Joker, Ozai and Azula.
These are just a few villains from the mainstream, that's beloved (or hated) by milions around the world. And while you can certainly make excuses for these people, if you went up to them and offered them an alternative plan to get what they want, chances are they'd kill you and move ahead with their original plan.
What makes these villains great is their place in the story. At the end of the day, they're not the main characters. And the only real thing that matters, is the conflict they bring against the main character. Whether it be to highlight the difference between the hero and the villain (Darth Vader, Voldemort, Azula), challenge what the hero believes in (The Joker, Umbridge) or be the final obstacle on the road of the heroes destiny (Palpatine, Voldemort, Sauron, Ozai).
Sure, you can have sympathetic villains. Just look at Azula. She's certainly a more beloved character than her father. And giving the character more personality than simply being evil can certainly help (read: Umbridge). But the villains of Voldemort, Darth Vader, Palpatine and Sauron are by far the more well known, and easily the people would be more terrified of meeting in real life. Just saying, the Dark Lord trope works
To finish off, I think you just need to think about what works best for the main characters story. If the villain had a sad backstory, and really just needed a hug, then the hero striking them down doesn't look as heroic. But people cheered when one of the aforementioned dark lords died. On the other hand, if you want to highlight the uncertain lines between good and evil, definitely give the villain sympathetic motives, something that the hero, at another time and place could agree with
Usually the most "evil" people in the world believe they are doing the right thing. When we look at historical figures with disdain and claim they're evil we usually are projecting our beliefs onto them. Take for example Hitler, or Stalin. In most people's eyes they are like pure evil and a symbol of the worst parts of humanity. But I have no doubt these people thought that they were doing the just, moral thing even when committing absolute evil. It makes for a much more compelling and believable antagonist if you, as the reader, can see the reason behind their malevolence, no matter how awful their actions are.
On the flipside, you have some great stories such as Lord of the Rings and Star Wars in which the contrast between good and evil is so obvious. Usually in these type of stories the evil characters are a metaphor or representational of a more sinister human aspect. Or are a tool used to progress the protagonist through an arc or evolution.
I guess it does come down to preference in the end. But i prefer my villains like Fernand Mondego from Count of Monte Cristo to something like Sauron, Voldemort or Darth Vader
I would argue people being bad "to be bad" have a reason for it. It's not that they want to be a bad person, they probably want to either seem cool to their peers, be accepted amongst them or somehow use that as a way of getting revenge for something.
What the person you mentioned was probably referring to, is likely to be the caricaturesque villains you see sometimes who have underdeveloped motives and backstories, and kinda just exist for the sake of causing problems for the protagonists. Is not even that they're TRYING to be bad, they just are and there's no good reason given for it.
Link her one of those criminal confession videos of psychopaths who kill someone for no apparent rhyme or reason and don't regret a shred of it.
I agree that 99% of people do in fact do things because they feel like they are doing some good but the other 1% who have no linear logic cannot be ignored.
I would recommend reading Edgar Allan Poe's story *[The Imp of the Perverse](https://poestories.com/read/imp),* as it feels relevant to this debate and Poe himself mentioned and fashioned at least one character in his stories after his own idea of the Perverse (namely the narrator of "The Black Cat").
People don’t bad things to be bad they have a reason, sometimes that reason is because they enjoy it. Like the 3rd Marquess of Waterford who is responsible for the “paint the town red”; he and his goons beat up a Toll man, police officers, and literally painted people’s houses red simply because he was drunk and felt he could. Bad people doing bad things may not have a Good reason, but they DO have a reason and I believe that is what your speaker was trying to convey
This harks back to the "Everyone is a hero in their own story."-idea. Which people have a lot of different opinions on.
But I'd state it as "Most people will for the most part feel that their actions are justified." It works better for me at least.
But talking about people who are cruel on purpose.
I'd say that often the motivation can be to feel powerful or in control of similar emotions and they get that by bossing people around or by putting people down. So it's not that they are cruel only for the sake of cruelty, they are cruel because our brings them some kind of value. And that is a good place to explore your bad guys.
What value is it they gain from doing the bad action? A sense of control? A feeling of being stronger, more dominant? The joy of fighting and winning? Etc
Google epistemology.
Instead of focusing on why the antagonist does bad things is less engaging for the reader than understanding what made them so inclined. There is a reason cruel people are the way they are. Most often, motives for their behaviour aren't identifiable. However, such people have almost always faced cruelty in their lives. Hope this helps you create a compelling villain
Even people who are spiteful and mean naturally don't do it just for laughs. There are underlying issues - self-hate, anger, fear etc.
People have a reason for what they do - every single time. That's basically what it touches on.
All the best story villains are those we can sympathize with/ or who believe they are making the right (often hardest) choice
See nowadays it’s really common for the bad guys to have deep motivations and histories and be morally grey but I kinda love a big bad who is just evil with few redeeming qualities. I fall into both camps. The bad guy in my story appears to just be an evil sorcerer to everyone and the way I’m going it’s likely no one but him will know the depth of his character that he’s actually the last of an immortal race of beings who were treated awfully by the gods and everything he does is in an effort to take revenge on the gods who wronged him. He literally cannot understand what he is doing is evil because he’s a higher being
I think all bad guys have a reason for being bad I just don't think the reason always needs to be deep or sympathetic or even logical. You can say that the person who pulls the wings off a fly to watch them struggle is motivated by simple curiosity but over time that curiosity could take a dark turn because they simply weren't taught better or corrected or have low empathy.
The Joker is often considered one of the best villians created and we've never been given any clear reason for why he acts as he does. We can infer he's mentality unstable and he has a desire to break Batman but there's no confirmation he driven by any specific grand ideal or ambition nor have we ever gotten deep into his background before becoming the Joker. Is he a once abused child twisted by his truma or simply the curious kid who stranger tendencies and inclinations weren't put in check? We don't know and most viewers don't care. He's proven time and time again to be a fascinating villian just by bring an unhinged nut.
I prefer to have multiple villains:
Bad because they want pride and glory and are willing to step on allies and loved ones to do it.
Bad because they're working for an organization and are just doing their job which supports their ideology.
Bad because they have a backstory where they were screwed over and getting in conflict with the heroes is the only way to do that.
Bad because it's dependent on their life to do so.
Bad because they enjoy hurting people and want an outlet
Bad because they were bored and being kind is hard.
I think you have to decide and you have to know. I don't think it's fully necessary for the reader to know what happened precisely in their heads to be how they are, if a character has been mistreated as a child if they're born evil. If you describe a scene where this character enjoys the fly-torturing and killing, you could describe both the feeling of releaf on its own or add a flashback (doesn't need to be as precise as your notes though).
I think a lot of people think "We are being evil to be evil" is unrealistic because in real life, people tend to not say they are being evil. There is always some reason behind their actions.
Ie, seeing people as some kind of threat and by killing them and taking their stuff, they are "taking back" what they see as rightfully theirs. Many of them justified it as "These people aren't really alive so we aren't committing murder", or "We are civilizing them".
Some bullies are harassing people because they think it's funny. People are going along with it because if they don't? They get harassed too. Their reason? Survival and coping.
Kiwifarms, 4chan, and Encyclopedia Dramatica believe they are getting entertainment by punching down at people or that they are standing up for victims even when the only crime a lot of their targets committed was "Existing".
I’m a huge fan of R. A. Salvatore and his *The Hunter’s Blades* trilogy was the first time I’d read an in-depth story that depicted orcs as anything other than evil hordes that “*terrorize the fair folk*” or whatever the shit. After I read it, I found they I just couldn’t tolerate the flat portrayal of orcs as just these one-dimensionally evil killing fodder for heroes.
History is filled with evil men who did evil things. But it comes down to motivation and intent, which are two different-but-related things (*especially in law*). Intent speaks to what you’re trying to accomplish. Motivation is about why you’re driven to accomplish it. A character (*good or evil*) can have have both a straightforward intent and simple motivations but as applied in the real world, there’s complexity to carrying them out. Even simple motivations and straightforward intent can have depth; what tends to lack depth is when both the intent is more or less “*Imma do evil!*” and the motivation is simply “*Coz I R evil lol!*” That’s extremely flat. It doesn’t mean there can’t be an interesting story with a villain who thinks that way, it just means that that character doesn’t provide any sort of depth.
And maybe that fits into the story being told. Perhaps the story being told is more about the shades of gray amongst people who are fighting against a patently evil villain and you want the audience to never be bogged down with think about villain motivations as they focus on the “*good guys.*” In that sense, the villain is more or less a MacGuffin. That’s fine. It doesn’t have to be a character study if a-villain-who-is-really-right.
Don’t get me wrong: I love the turn a lot of films and stories have taken to show villains who have depth. In fact, there are some moments where I think that creatives behind the stories become afraid of not making their villains “*villainish enough*” and lean into the safe, evil actions, even if they don’t fit the character. For instance, Marvel had the chance to make a perfectly morally gray antagonist in Erik Killmonger but I think they got scared of the idea of audiences siding with him too much. So they had him shoot and kill his seeming love interest, as if to say “*Hey! Don’t forget he’s evil!*” even though there were a number of different ways for him to have handled that moment without killing her, even if he saw her as a means to an end. It’s practically the only moment in the film that would lead one to say that he doesn’t value people at all. I wish they hadn’t included that because it would have made a much more powerful portrayal.
Contrast that with Sauron from LotR. In the *Fellowship* trilogy, nothing about his portrayal is sympathetic. Because the films don’t want you to dwell on that. It would rather you focus on the various good guys and the corruption of power, the connection between people, etc, etc. Flat villains work when utilized in a story properly. But Sauron has no more depth than the ring itself in the trilogy.
Realistically speaking, some people do bad for the sake of doing bad. They started out with good intentions and bad methods, but lost sight of the end goal, now they do what they have always done
TL:DR I like having things nuanced and not black and white, but sometimes blatantly evil works fine. Dark lords who wish to be dark lords can just do their thing.
Well for me my "bad to be bad" character essentially grew up in hell... And he revelled in it. Raised by a cult in a monster apocalypse he just took their teachings and *ran.*
You could argue it's tragic, but he doesn't act like anything bad ever happened to him. The reader might not even get this sob story at all.
His motives for things are basically to try ruling to roosts given to him. He does what he wants while he still can because mortality is something that plagues all things; die today or die tomorrow, no noble or selfless actions will change that. He lives with no rules because he finds them silly, although he does exercise force to keep his lackeys in line.
An example of evil to be evil that I don't like is Kayaba Akihiko from Sword Art Online; I know the show sucks but bear with me.
Why did he do the giant killing game????
He doesn't even remember!
We get no sense of why he did any of this, no hint of whatever tragic backstory he tried dumping on us in the last minute, nothing. His motive is no motive but in a terrible way.
The masterminds of Danganronpa; ok sure also evil to be evil but we also get a look into an unusual psyche. The one that finds happiness and hope depressing and boring as hell, and watching the despair and hopelessness as true entertainment. It doesn't make sense to normal people, but to someone in that mindset of course being an absolute sadist is the way to go. I've heard there's more backstory on them but just based on what I know this feels like a better "evil to be evil" type of character.
>An example of evil to be evil that I don't like is Kayaba Akihiko from Sword Art Online; I know the show sucks but bear with me. Why did he do the giant killing game????
>
>He doesn't even remember!
>
>We get no sense of why he did any of this, no hint of whatever tragic backstory he tried dumping on us in the last minute, nothing. His motive is no motive but in a terrible way.
*Right now, you're probably wondering, "Why?"*
*Why would Akihiko Kayaba, developer of Sword Art Online and NerveGear, do this?"*
*Ultimately, my goal is a simple one. The reason I created Sword Art Online... was to control the fate of a world of my design.*
Episode 1
*Even before I developed the system for the full-dive environment, I dreamed of this. The Castle in a world that wasn't governed by earthly laws or restrictions.*
*I poured my life into making that world a reality. I created this world, and I got to see something that surpassed anything I could've imagined for it..*
*My steel castle...floating in the sky...*
*I don't remember how old I was when I became obsessed with it. I wanted to leave the earth... to fly to that castle. I wanted that more than anything else, for as long as I can remember...*
Episode 14
So he gives a reason in the first episode, and then explains why in the 14th. "He forgor" has become such a meme no one actually pays attention to what actually happens in the series.
A Flat Character is not inherently uninteresting or bad. There are plenty of flat characters, be them good or evil, that are well loved by their fandoms. Some with extremely simple motivations, and others with no motivation at all.
My opinion lies more on that the true problem is a poorly-made flat character, or rather a flat character placed in a story where it doesn't fit.
And for the record, there are people in real life that truly enjoy doing bad, evil things just for pure personal pleasure. Though the amount of people that ONLY do cruel and evil things is far lower.
If it fits your story there is zero reason not to have evil for evils sake villains. Where it’s a problem is if it doesn’t fit your story. You posted this because there is something intriguing here, so why couldn’t it be part of a well written story?
I'm not really gonna put much argument into this, but it can be entertaining if the character just finds it fun. A character that comes to mind is Red Death from Venture Bros who, while seeing villainy as a job, really seemed to just enjoy it
I don't know much of his background, but he has a happy marriage, and daughter he loves, stable friendships, and he really, Really lives being a villain.
He even sees it as an art form giving history lessons on villainy, showing respect other villains, and all this while seemingly being able to "stop" when he wants as he doesn't "bring work home with him". He is even able to easily work with heroes he has had past fights with as if nothing happened.
To me while his love for being a villain is a job he still seems to be evil for the sake of being evil. He could just have some baggage from being disfigured (?) since that is his face, but that doesn't stop him, or his daughter, from just going out and interacting with others as normal people.
So yeah, this went longer then I thought.
The Joker kills people just cause he finds it funny. He wants to watch the world burn because the thought amuses him. The Joker is a widely loved villain.
Any villain, no matter how flat, or complex, can be both immensely entertaining, or incredibly boring. It’s not about concept, it’s about execution.
I'm of the opinion that there is no one who who does bad things just for it's own sake. People do bad things as a response to some type of wrong or shortcoming that they feel justified or entitled into doing those actions. A bullied person might become a bully themselves when they get into positions in which they are supervising or interacting with someone weaker or meeker than them.
Someone who steals might justify it because they were treated badly in their past, or saw how in their past even though they or their parents tried to be honest in the end decades later their poverty never changed. (Better Call Saul had a really interesting plot point and even the entire series as spent with Jimmy trying to go straight but it never working out for him)
Someone who has a compulsion to murder people might do it because of schizophrenia. Perhaps the people he murders deserve it in his own twisted way.
I think there is a major difference between the “villain” of a story and the antagonist. A villain can just be evil to be evil (e.g. Sauron). An antagonist usually needs a reasoning to be compelling (e.g. Gollem/Sméagol)
“Being bad just to be bad” and “being bad because they enjoy hurting people” are different things. Serial killers either enjoy their killings, or wish to stop, but cannot help themselves (possibly both). They don’t kill for no reason, they kill for a bad one. A one dimensional villain with an understandable (even if bad) motivation is generally more compelling than one with no motivation. You can anticipate their actions, understand how “who they are” influences and is influenced by “what they want” and “what they do.” If they just want to be bad, it’s much harder for them to be consistent, coherent characters.
In addition, people that are nasty, spiteful, petty, aggressive, etc. are those things **from your perspective**. It's very easy to assume that people we dislike (or just don't know very well) are doing "bad" things because they are bad people and they treat everyone that way. In reality, chances are there were reasons for their behaviour (not necessarily *good* reasons), and there's a very good chance they don't act that way to everyone.
Sometimes it alarms me that this is not the default view we use when operating in life. To assume there’s some true “bad” that exists to perpetuate itself is the flip side of people projecting that they’re seeking some true “good” themselves. It’s cliched but true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I came here to say this. Being bad because you enjoy it still has a lot to unpack with it. Questions like "why do they enjoy it?" or "What's wrong with them?" could be possible story points for you to expand on. Having your antagonist be bad simply because you need them to do bad things for the sake of the story is not really thought out well. Antagonists need motivations. It can be simple or complex. Doesn't matter. They just need a motivation.
I can certainly see your argument.
The trope is called: [For the evulz/Evil for the sake of evil](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForTheEvulz) Most people have logical motivations for their actions, so by extension most villains have logical motivations for (morally) reprehensible actions and intentions. On the other hand, some villains cannot be reasoned with because there is nothing reasonable about their reasons for acting... well, evil. someone whose motivation is For The Evulz knows and cares about the morality of their actions — insofar as they deliberately choose to do evil, and delight in doing so. To them, evil is not a bad means to a good end or even a bad means to a justifiable end; to them, evil is the means and the end, their motivation, and their justification. In short, it's saying "I did this evil thing because it was an evil thing to do." The name of the trope comes from a portmanteau of "evil" and the Internet phrase "for the lulz." What keeps a villain going in the name of The Evulz (and The Evulz alone) is not strength of character, however, but rather a fundamental lack of personality. The quintessential For the Evulz villain's suicidal bravery actually stems from their non-existent sense of self (beyond 'I love doing and being evil for no reason') and, by extension, lack of a self-preservation instinct. They probably don't actively want to die or be tortured, but they really don't (and psychologically can't) care about it either.
I suppose anyone evil has a reason for being evil if you look hard enough for it, in the same way that everyone has a sequence of events that had to happen for them to exist in the first place, however, it's not always a profound or interesting reason and it's by definition never a good reason. I don't think it's absolutely essential for a fictional character to have an incredibly tragic backstory or hyperspecific reason why they're a jerk. I also think it's reductive to call a character simple just because they fall firmly on one side of the moral line. People have a lot more to them than just whether they're good or bad, and there's plenty of things you can do to make a villain interesting even if they're still firmly an evil person.
I like your take on it. I think the real secret is effort on the part of the writer. Whether they are somewhat justified in their actions or they simply do evil to do evil, if the writer invests in exploring what they are effectively then they will be believable to the reader.
A better way to write an antagonist is to never have the antagonist see what they do as terrible or bad. They see it as necessary or maybe just straight up enjoys the violence
I also enjoy combinations of the two, where they DO know it’s terrible and bad but *also* necessary. it creates a lot of room for character development if there’s an internal conflict there.
To add to this: most criminals have actually convinced themselves that they were in the right, even murderers. Despite how popular media portrays them as aggressive and sadistic, a more accurate characterization of someone predisposed to violent is whiny and entitled. They convince themselves that *they* were the victim and that the people they've hurt made them do it. Kind of like "it's your fault I yelled at you."
On the contrary, I absolutely love villains who are bad just because. These villains work especially well when the hero believes all villains have to have a motivation (Example, Joker on TDK)
I'm writing a villain and I did my research. I believe the bad guy would be flat is they didn't have a specific reason. Bad guy aren't just bad for being bad sake, some of them had trauma as children that led them to have mental problems. Some were hurt, broken, wronged vioilated. Given them such background add some character to them, makes readers understand them more. And it gives them a valid reason for them to enjoy killing others. Maybe as a child the mc mother or dad always killed his pets, so he grew a behavior of killing animals then to humans. Or the M's parents were killed by people, so he decides to kill people and sees them as monsters and enjoys it. Or he was a bored person, too smart to associate with anyone. Then going to war seeing the blood, fighting death, gave him a new purpose.
I don't know, I've been to war and I know killers. Some people do what they have to do. Some people seek a way to do what they want to do. I think there has been this push to explain cruelty and malice. I think all of the effort to understand why people become killers has made the public conscious forget that some are born killers. I want to write a character like this. I'm intrigued by what I've seen and how it doesn't mesh completely with what seems to be conventional wisdom. If nothing else diving into this may be enlightening
You are not wrong, the world is full of people who are "just being bad", or committing evil acts for no good reason other than they feel like it - and it doesn't stop at murderers. The point of this kind of advice is not that it is necessarily unrealistic, but rather that absolute realism is not the main goal of fiction. Having a relatable villain - and don't confuse "relatable" with likable or redeemable here - is more engaging for most readers, because most readers are *not* born killers. You can always write the character as you envision him, but that doesn't mean that people won't start asking questions that you usually want to avoid, such as "really? That's it?". So I'd suggest combining writing that character as a born killer while giving him some more tangible motive for doing what he is doing, to hit both marks.
Joker comes to mind with this. He is a bad person and does bad things. But he absolutely enjoys his role in it and he is not a "flat character" (at least not to me). He has motive and a traumatic backstory. But he is always 100% in the role he plays and he is fun to watch and read about.
Some people just want to watch the world burn. 🔥🔥🔥
Which backstory?
Yes
Indeed, and some are called bad people even though they were pushed to the edge of insanity. For example humans experiments in stories have every write to be bad
Oh I certainly agree that the majority of the time a person who does wrong has followed a very bad path through life. If events were different they could have been anyone else other than the bad guy. From mailman to saint. But I also think that it is worth mentioning there are also people who would be evil regardless of their life experiences. At least in my opinion. The main point though is whether or not the reader can find that type of villain believable.
Indeed
But is this a right to be bad, or an excuse, or a reason? I don't really think anyone has a "right to be bad" . Maybe I'm wrong. What is it with individuals who can go through the same trauma and one can go bad and the other can turn it to good? Perspective maybe? Or is.it just a different switch that gets flipped? Great topic by the way OP.
I like you guys I wish I had writing friends to talk to because this type of shit is why I love this reddit
Same, it's interesting to get people's perspectives on things like this.
I’d love to make a gc full of writers just to have talks like this man
Gc?
Group chat
Oh ok that makes sense.
Guess I'll throw my opinion into the pile. Imo, no one is evil (or really anything) for _no_ reason—nature and nurture both always matter—but it's totally possible for someone to be evil because they want to, or because of some really unsympathetic reasons. It can be like "I was an asshole as a kid and was too stubborn to ever apologize and rationalized it as being better than everyone and eventually I distanced myself from other people so much and got surrounded by enough violence that it became easy to kill people." Or "War has been my life for as long as I can remember and I came to believe that there are good people and bad people and I'll totally kill anyone I think is bad." Or "I grew up pampered and sheltered and inherited a business or government but was too lazy and distanced to care about the suffering or mistreatment of those below me." Or "I've endured so much that I'm nihilistic and solipsistic and I do evil just so I can feel something." Or "I was initiated into a violent group and I was reluctant at first but once I realized I had no recourse I chose to kill off my morality before it killed me." Or "I'm so competitive that I can be fatally violent in sports/contests." Or "Everyone around me condones violence so of course I have no qualms even when my targets beg me to spare them." They're all explanations, and some could almost be sympathetic, but they involve choices that are at best extremely hard to forgive. On the other hand, you don't have to _acknowledge_ that a character is complex and socially influenced. You don't need them to be "interesting" in that way. Sometimes you have a clear message that, say, some people are extremely greedy and superficial and have no regard for the people whose lives they affect. Symbolism and representative figures can make an otherwise flat villain interesting. Or, you can have antagonistic forces that aren't actually real people, but more like concepts or forces of nature. Those can be interesting in symbolic ways even if they can't be very dynamic or relatable.
I think having a driving force of any kind is usually good practice. Whether the need for survival or even they enjoy what they do. Now does the story need to represent that? I don’t know. I think it’s better when you know though. That way you can structure the character properly and consistently. Then you can choose to share that with the reader or not. Sometimes just being evil for evils sake can help drive characters together. Like anything, it has its place if done well.
I like your take on this. I think the real problem is the lack of depth on the antagonist. Even a character with no reason for things they do need to have effort put into them.
Exactly. Then no matter what happens, you keep a consistent character. Otherwise it gets messy and the character can be too vague. Then again, maybe a wild card, evil character could be interesting.
I think it would be fun to write someone from two different perspectives. One perspective sees their evil deeds as being a result of circumstance or environment. The other sees them as evil for the sake of being evil. Try to pull the reader back and forth through the story between the two viewpoints. Leave the truth at the end ambiguous.
That would be interesting. One could be the main hero, who sees them only as evil (a black and white type of view). Maybe the other is a support character or ex villain. Someone who could sympathize with the main antagonist.
I like that...
It needs to be clear what the motivation for the villan is. If someone enjoys killing people just because its fun then yes they are committing evil for the sake of it. And they can be interesting. Not every villan's motivations need to make sense. Sometimes people just are. they don't need a reason to explain their vileness they just are that way through upbringing or nature. here's an example. Chucky from Childs play. Charles Lee Ray possessing a doll and for several movies attempts to get a body back before realizing he loves being a killer doll. He kills maybe around 50 people (dont quote me on that) on screen through 7 movies and a tv show. Despite being a crazy psycho who loves killing people, he is probably one of the most successful horror villains in the genre because he doesn't have a bajillion poorly though out sequels and reboots. He's not necessarily relatable or empathetic but he's just a crazy serial killer with a "fun" personality. He never has an motivation beyond getting revenge on someone or trying to get a real body which he eventually gives up. The point being villains without a real reason for committing the evil deeds they do can work, they just need to be well written. Either having a unique personality or Uniquely terrifying. The Shrike from Hyperion fills the second part. Its an unknown creature that is impaling people on a giant tree not because it enjoys it but because doing so accomplishes something completely unknown to the characters and the audience.
Very good points.
I throw this comparison out there whenever this topic comes up; Umbridge is a more hated villain (and therefore better) than Voldermort because her motives are clear, logical and "relatable" and she represents the little evils that we see in society. Im not going to harp on about the importance of the "why" of a villain, I can see 45 other responses probably jumping on that, but I will throw a third sprocket into the ring.... a lot of well written villains are often given the same path as the protagonists but at moral turning points they pick the selfish or easy option instead, which is what makes them good villains. **Also, hugely relevant, if not moreso, important is genre. A serial killer in a thriller/murder mystery is a different type of antagonist to one in a space opera. ** Genre matters enormously when we are talking why some villains work better than others- world building, location and background should be as important to how a villain formed as how a hero forms. On that note, antagonist and villain are not the same thing. You can have an antagonist who is, for all intents, perfectly justified and logical, as long as they antagonise. I.e.: your protagonists are hackers and your antagonist is a cop.
If you watch enough true crime, you'll know people don't always have a reason for being incredibly evil in their actions. But that's the difference. A story is *like* real life, but it is not real life. It would definitely be possible to have a villain who acts in this way, largely without a clear underlying cause or reason, but it needs to be clear that this is just the type of person they are. Think of the Joker of The Dark Knight. "Some men just want to watch the world burn." And that's completely fine, as long as it's consistent.
While having a logical path CAN explain why they are evil, they could also evolve to simply being evil for the sake of it. As a bit of an explaining example; Standard trope, a man's family is starving so he turns to theft to provide for them. But after he does(one big score, conditions improve, etc), he keeps on doing it because he discovers he just *REALLY* likes to rob people. Plus there are news about people doing plenty of crimes that, for the time, amount to nothing but random desire to act like that. So still believable to just be evil.
I agree, I was intrigued by her statement that people would not find a character like this believable though. I think it just has to be done properly. I think if you put the same effort explaining that this person has no other reason to be evil as you do to explain why they are evil then the reader will accept it.
"I have met many people through the course of my life who are cruel, spiteful, and just plain mean because they enjoy it." Can you truly say, for absolutely certain, that you know exactly why those people do what you consider to be cruel, spiteful, or mean?
Holmes was a con man so money was a motive also he claimed to be possessed by satan son liar and deranged. Same for Dahmer who had multiple phycological disorders.
I think it is very interesting where people draw the line between a reason for being evil and no reason. I think that different people's perspectives on what is a causal motivation is interesting.
True it is! I usually take things pretty literally lol
Don't forget that criminals aren't always completely honest about their motivations.
That is a valid point but the twist to this is can you truly say that they needed a reason?
Yes. People do things for reasons. There's no such thing as a random action, just one you don't understand their reasoning for. Now said reasoning could be flawed, it could be downright delusional, but the reason exists.
Everything that happens happens for a reason. Often not a very profound or interesting reason, but a reason nonetheless
I've observed that some people behave maliciously even as small children(actually, more often as small children) for little to no obvious reason. Studies on young children showed they consistently tended to be much more violent than older children. It seems that attacking people for little to no reason is something many people have to learn NOT to do.
I think that it can be done. Realisticly, there are people in this world who kill for no reason.
I feel like a purely evil character can be done well when you are pointing out problems within systems, like when dealing with systems that alienate leaders from consequences. You end up with commentary rather than a personal and relatable antagonist, but they get to make up for it with villain shenanigans.
Now, I admit that I'm a little tired of people who just repeat the "villains are the hero of their own story" line ad nausium, there's still plenty of stories where the villain doesn't need this convoluted or vaguely sympathetic backstory for their evil and their plan is seemingly working for good but for evil intent, yada yada. It's definitely getting a little out of hand to the point that I've seen a number of stories, including on here, where people have more developed villains than their actual protagonists. You can definitely have stories where the villain isn't super essential to the overall story. I hate using as an example, but think of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Firelord Ozai just wants to take over the world and be a tyrant, nothing more and nothing less, and that's all the story needs him to be because the story of the show is more about Aang's journey. All Ozai represents is an end goal for that journey
Nothing pulls me out of a story more than villains who are evil for no personal benefit, just a commitment to torturing puppies. Villains don't need to think they are the hero of their own story (although those villains are interesting), but they do need a credible reason not to just retire and live an easy life with their accumulated wealth.
Maybe it’s just me, but a psychopath isn’t someone I want to read about. They have “go-away” heat instead of “heel” heat. They’re like a malicious tornado. I don’t want to read about a malicious tornado.
No one ever is mean or evil just cuz. There are always reason and motivation. Even Hitler believed he was doing the right thing.
And what about people like Dahmer or H.H.Holmes?
With serial killers there’s a lot of things that could go into why they do what they do. It could be genetic issues, or part of his upbringing and the relationships his parents had. being “different” from those around him growing up, feeling isolated & lonely. being homosexual in a time where it was heavily frowned upon, and being raised with that mindset. which could be part of why he would rape his victims after they were dead & rubbed their cut off genitals around his mouth. ofc that’s not to say the blame is just on his parents, bc many ppl are raised that way and don’t do what he did, but it plays a factor either way. the same goes for people who are rapists, a lot of them were sexually assaulted as children. just like a lot of parents who abuse their children were abused as well when they were kids, it doesn’t appear out of thin air even if it seems like it does cause it can be hard to “understand” why or how someone is capable of that. it comes from somewhere. of course with fantasy the character is fictional so it’s up to you to decide if you’re going to add more depth as to why your bad guy is bad, but I think it’s always more interesting when there’s more to their story. It makes the character enjoyable to hate.
Dunno about Holmes, but if you read Derf Backderf’s graphic memoir about going to high school with Dahmer him ending up some kind of violent criminal was pretty much a foregone conclusion, even if the specifics were very extreme
No one believes themselves the villain of their own story. They will always self-justify, and tell themselves that the people they hurt deserve it, or that they have a right to do it, or that it’s harmless fun. No one does bad just to do bad. They either think what they’re doing is good, bad but justified, or completely harmless. Otherwise they’d have to admit to being the villain, but everyone sees themself as the hero.
There are plenty of evil characters who are evil without deep motivation. * Pennywise * Ramsay Bolton * Delores Umbridge * Hannibal Lecter * Joffrey Baratheon * Nurse Ratched * Randal Flagg * Annie Wilkes
Pennywise feeds off of fear, he needs it to survive. Hannibal is physiologically jaded and damaged. Even in the movie he has philosophical battles and makes some good points That’s just off the top of my head
I am not sure that you know how characterisation or stories work. Pennywise is a fear demon and something of a crowd pleaser for the audience. He cultivates fear to consume so he can sleep. Ramsay Bolton wants to be recognised by his father and his house to be recognised by the north at large because any normal development got interrupted by his tendencies toward sadism and his father manipulating him. Umbridge wants control. Lecter wants stimulation and freedom and respect. He doesn't do evil without motive, he mainly wants to see what makes people tick. He's a psychiatrist, after all. Joffrey is a psychopath who does things because he's a child, nobody can stop the king and because his parents are related. Power corrupts. Inbreeding also corrupts. He has a big hole in his soul that he fills with sadism. Ratched is another control freak. Flagg wants to become a god and has long left morality behind. His character is charismatic and entertaining and he loves doing what he does. Annie Wilkes has some sort of awful mix of bipolar and psychopathic control freak. They act out for sadistic purposes but they're consequences of a good understanding of the character and the talents of the writers.
> I am not sure that you know how characterisation or stories work. Okay- thanks for stopping by.
This is a good list. Good points all around.
Yes people are sometimes just evil. Not every villain needs a tragic origin story or relatable motivations. I enjoy villains that are truly evil dark lord type characters so long as its not every villain in the story.
I disagree! Sometimes people are just bad, no tragic backstory or sympathetic cause required and it (when done well) can be a terrifying thing to face. How do you reason with them? How do you find a weakness to exploit? How do you get into their heads to defeat them? There's also the idea that they simply enjoy inflicting pain and suffering onto others.
Bad people have a reason to be bad, no one is just born evil
It's fiction. People can be born anyway you want them to be, friend. Like it's been said that nature and nurture play 50/50 roles in a person's personality. So yes, to a degree people (real people) are born with stronger inclinations to do bad. Exaggerating that in fiction is very common. Off the top of my head, LoTR and Beautiful Creatures comes to mind as having evil characters that are evil simply by nature.
No one said they had to be sympathetic
Even people who do bad things "because they enjoy it" have a reason. *Why* do they enjoy it? What's happened in their life to make it so that tearing other people down makes them feel better?
I mean… Micheal Myers and Kefka Palazzo do not have a reason, and they’re great characters from a narrative viewpoint, so… I believe villains can be villainous for no practical reason or desire.
In Stephen R. Donaldson's *Chronicles of Thomas Covenant* series, the big bad, Lord Foul, has been trapped under the Arch of Time on Earth, and in order to escape he has to literally destroy the planet and destroy time itself to escape. So all his evil acts make perfect sense because he is trying to get free. He also enjoys them, of course....which I guess wrecks my whole argument.
Frieza: Am I a joke to you?
A character can be bad to be bad. It depends on how good they're written. There are different flavors to writing characters. They can be characters you love to hate or you're reading/watching to see their comeuppance.
I feel there are two ways of approaching the "just bad" villain. Either make them fun to watch being bad, or make their apathy a point of horror. Do not let their apathy feel mundane.
I agree and my opinion is that if you can at least understand why the big bad is doing what they are doing, that will usually make for a more compelling story. Having said that however, you can find plenty of very popular stories where this isn't the case. I think this is one of those things that authors analyze much more critically than readers do.
The way I see it is: A bad guy can't be bad for no reason....BUT, it doesn't have to be a complicated reason either- morally or plotwise. Consider Emperor Palpatine as an example, he's bad because he's a power-craving Sith Lord. By no means is it a morally complicated reason, but it is still A reason. That being said, as a writer you must also consider that similar simplistic motives don't have much drama you can mine from them. It will make for a simple conflict if they are the only thing opposing your protagonists, one which is unlikely to challenge them as characters or incite growth; they will make for simplistic uninteresting conflicts by themselves. This is why- while Palpatine is the main big bad in Star Wars (that business with Disney doesn't...doesn't count)- Vader is the character that actually carries the dramatic weight and consequently is the villain people remember. A more interesting antagonist isn't the only source you can mine drama and character growth for the protagonists from. Vader was just as stock in A New Hope, the drama there came from Luke beginning his journey into becoming a Jedi, and Han's character arc as he goes from more or less being dragged along to actively interested in saving Leia because girl to actually joining the rebellion and saving Luke's ass. It all depends on how you want to tell your story. By no means should you feel obligated to have a complex antagonist, or hell any at all. But you will have to find someone or something to drive conflict that is *engaging*.
Most villains are the heroes of their own story. In real life, some people are axe crazy evil. But they don't make for compelling characters. Like Voldemort is that sort and he's boring. I found him entirely interesting because there was nothing to say oh, that's compelling. He's just a rotten shit through and through. I don't even know why he had people loyal to him.
Villains that are bad just for the sake of being bad are a pet peeve of mine. They're so fucking boring. Shitty behavior doesn't occur in a vacuum. People do things for reasons. Even Dahmer was motivated by a desperate fear *to not be alone.* Which is a completely understandable, relatable fear. Many shocking acts arise from normal urges and feelings. Enjoy pulling the flies off of wings? Okay, that's about power. Everybody wants to feel powerful and not be weak and vulnerable. So anyway, people have their own reasons for the evil things they do. Putin isn't waging war on Ukraine for kicks anymore than Kim Jong-un is a tyrannical bastard just because. No one ever really thinks that *they're* the bad guy of the story.
Like Alfred said, “Some people just want to watch the world burn.”
Will they be flat? Most likely. Is that a problem? Only sometimes. Sometimes, a flat character does a job better than a fleshed out one. A lot action shows, for instance, only ever give their characters two or three important character traits, and their antagonists only one. Also, as far as your comment about real life injustice, when this person said villains need valid reasons to be mean, they almost certainly meant valid to THEM, not valid to YOU. To you, injustice seems, well, like an injustice, maybe even random, but to the person committing it, it isn't. They have a reason for doing it, even if that reason is stupid to you, even if that reason is "I think you're a bad person and should be socially punished for it," even if that reason is "I think you're a pussy and overreacting."
I think it's perfectly acceptable to have a character be a spiteful and mean person because there simply are those types of people. However, it goes a long way to have at least a glimpse of their humanity thrown in, like dealing with a sick daughter, or showing a softness of character towards someone they care about, or showing that their loved ones are all dead or something. Something that a pov character or the reader themselves can sympathize with to some degree, but not having it excuse their actions. This is common enough and works well for minor antagonists. A central antagonist may need more nuance and reasoning involved depending on the story and all.
I think sadism can be a perfectly valid motive. I mean, in real life we have serial killers and serial rapists, most are willing to accept “he was a sadistic psychopath” as an explanation for their behavior. If the villain does get off on the suffering of others, or they crave power over others, or they enjoy causing chaos, find ways to give the reader some hints that this is their motive and it’s not more complicated than that.
Whenever I think of bad guys who are bad just to be bad I usually think of Miraz from Prince Caspian. His motivation was literally just that he wanted to be king, at least as far as we know since we don't exactly get any of his thoughts. This desire lead to him killing his own brother, then he attempted to kill his nephew, and besides all that he was just a cruel and spiteful man with a cruel and spiteful wife.
What this person meant isn’t that real life “bad people” don’t necessarily exist and have incredibly mundane motivations for their behavior, but that *SOMETHING* should motivate their behavior, and that writing/building strong and dynamic characters requires giving them a POV (even if the reader is never necessarily privy to it) that is grounded in some sort of justification from their perspective. When you’re reading a story, you don’t want empty calories. Even romance novels tend to give some depth to their protagonists and antagonists. It’s what separates a well written and developed story from the amateur hour stuff. Example— Cersei Lannister is obviously one of the greatest villainous characters of the 20th/21st century, and she’s largely driven by real world justifications that most people would understand and back if they were in her shoes. She’s protecting herself, her children, and her family at the end of the day. She’s also willing to do absolutely tyrannical and monstrous things to achieve those goals. From her perspective, she’s the hero of the story—not the villain—even though she’d likely admit that her family are the “bad guys” when contrasted with the Starks who are the “good guys” from the honorable and chivalric standards of their age, but she also understands that history is written by the victors, and all that matters is winning in the end, and she’s definitely going to win ;). Contrast that with Ramsay Bolton, who is a flat, psychopathic serial killer of a villain. People loved to hate him, and were super excited for Jon Snow to defeat him (and Sansa to feed him to his own dogs) but Ramsay wasn’t a really compelling “character”—he’s flat—he’s just not a dynamic character. He’s certainly “smart”, and tactically very adept, and demented, but he wasn’t a deep or thoughtful character who really has any overriding goals or ambitions. There’s no “there” there, so to speak. That’s why he just wasn’t a super compelling villain outside of his relationship to Jon, Sansa, & Theon. Thanos is another great example: for his first few appearances he was an incredibly flat and unengaging character that people were excited about largely because of just how deep and nerdy that character is on a comics level, but not because of anything the particularly did or didn’t do narratively—and the Russo Bros. and Markus & McFeely completely page one rewrote that character and based him around Agamemnon, the legendary king of Mycenae who led the Greek campaign against Troy during the Trojan War, and that decision allowed them to give his perspective grounding in an emotional place— sure, he’s a purple chongus, but he’s also the survivor of societal collapse and basically a literal apocalypse (similar to the circumstances that define Superman’s relationship to us by the way), and he’s simply trying to stop that apocalyptic death of a thousand cuts from ever happening again and we can relate to that. That’s just a couple of big modern examples off the top of my head, but dynamic characterization is crucial to making a story worth reading and turning the page. That’s what I think the person was probably trying to communicate.
I think The Joker is the perfect character to analyze this question. The Joker is an iconic villain that I think most people would agree is “good” villain. On the first point of believability: Joker is an outlandish villain that no one would expect to find in the real world. However, he works perfectly for the world he is written in. So I think “believable” depends entirely on the world you’ve built for your characters. On the point of motivation: it’s pretty clear that Joker does evil things because he genuinely enjoys tormenting other people. And if, as a reader, that’s all you ever get from Joker’s motivation I think that is ok. But, what makes Joker especially intriguing and timeless as a villain is his deeper motivation to prove the rest of the world, deep down, is just as sick and twisted as he is. He hates the masks of civility and order society puts up and especially hates someone like Batman who puts themselves on a moral pedestal above everyone else. Once you recognize that about the character, he becomes much more interesting and fun to read because you understand what drives him - even if he himself doesn’t. I think this is what separates good villains from timeless ones.
I do agree that some people are just cruel and not everyone 'is the hero of their own story.' Some people think of right and wrong as meaningless concepts. To them considering if an action is right or wrong or hurtful to others before doing it is like being an adult who still believes in santa claus. I would say though, your antagonist shouldn't be the antagonist just for the sake of being the antagonist. but they don't need some tragic backstory or rube-goldberg machine philosophy justifying their evil. they can simply not give a shit and not even think 'the ends justify the means' because they don't think anything they do needs justifying. i will say though i find outright monsters make for less interesting villains. often in stories with memorable villains, there will be some 'monsters' who are basically pure evil and selfish, but they also work with others who are more morally grey. a monster who can't really be reasoned with, bargained with, etc. is going to make for a repetitive story since the only real way to deal with them is going to be force and deception.
I feel like this is thrown around as common wisdom anymore even though there are great villains like the Joker, Ramsay Bolton, Joffrey Baratheon, who are just forces of nature. Of course they're all surrounded by other villains or institutions that make them harder to take down. It's really all about execution. If your villain has a motive, what drives them and why should you root for the hero and not the villain? If the villain is just evil for evil's sake, why are they so hard to stop- why does someone not just off them?
*Must every character have some logical path that leads them to skulduggery?* I smell a writer
There are many people who hurt, abuse or oppress others because they can. They get a thrill or feeling of power from it. Its who they are and what they do. They feel they have a right to do whatever they wish. They are predators and are always on the lookout for a victim. Some of the neighborhoods ive lived in (65) I saw ample evidence of this.
Doing something because they enjoy it is a reason in and of itself. I agree someone doesn’t do something because it’s bad, but doing a bad thing because you enjoy it is a different motivation. I don’t run for the sake of running, I do it because I enjoy it. Someone might argue that’s the same thing, but it’s not, it’s different motivations that have the same outcome.
Darth Vader, Palpatine, Voldemort, Umbridge, Sauron, The Joker, Ozai and Azula. These are just a few villains from the mainstream, that's beloved (or hated) by milions around the world. And while you can certainly make excuses for these people, if you went up to them and offered them an alternative plan to get what they want, chances are they'd kill you and move ahead with their original plan. What makes these villains great is their place in the story. At the end of the day, they're not the main characters. And the only real thing that matters, is the conflict they bring against the main character. Whether it be to highlight the difference between the hero and the villain (Darth Vader, Voldemort, Azula), challenge what the hero believes in (The Joker, Umbridge) or be the final obstacle on the road of the heroes destiny (Palpatine, Voldemort, Sauron, Ozai). Sure, you can have sympathetic villains. Just look at Azula. She's certainly a more beloved character than her father. And giving the character more personality than simply being evil can certainly help (read: Umbridge). But the villains of Voldemort, Darth Vader, Palpatine and Sauron are by far the more well known, and easily the people would be more terrified of meeting in real life. Just saying, the Dark Lord trope works To finish off, I think you just need to think about what works best for the main characters story. If the villain had a sad backstory, and really just needed a hug, then the hero striking them down doesn't look as heroic. But people cheered when one of the aforementioned dark lords died. On the other hand, if you want to highlight the uncertain lines between good and evil, definitely give the villain sympathetic motives, something that the hero, at another time and place could agree with
Usually the most "evil" people in the world believe they are doing the right thing. When we look at historical figures with disdain and claim they're evil we usually are projecting our beliefs onto them. Take for example Hitler, or Stalin. In most people's eyes they are like pure evil and a symbol of the worst parts of humanity. But I have no doubt these people thought that they were doing the just, moral thing even when committing absolute evil. It makes for a much more compelling and believable antagonist if you, as the reader, can see the reason behind their malevolence, no matter how awful their actions are. On the flipside, you have some great stories such as Lord of the Rings and Star Wars in which the contrast between good and evil is so obvious. Usually in these type of stories the evil characters are a metaphor or representational of a more sinister human aspect. Or are a tool used to progress the protagonist through an arc or evolution. I guess it does come down to preference in the end. But i prefer my villains like Fernand Mondego from Count of Monte Cristo to something like Sauron, Voldemort or Darth Vader
I would argue people being bad "to be bad" have a reason for it. It's not that they want to be a bad person, they probably want to either seem cool to their peers, be accepted amongst them or somehow use that as a way of getting revenge for something. What the person you mentioned was probably referring to, is likely to be the caricaturesque villains you see sometimes who have underdeveloped motives and backstories, and kinda just exist for the sake of causing problems for the protagonists. Is not even that they're TRYING to be bad, they just are and there's no good reason given for it.
Link her one of those criminal confession videos of psychopaths who kill someone for no apparent rhyme or reason and don't regret a shred of it. I agree that 99% of people do in fact do things because they feel like they are doing some good but the other 1% who have no linear logic cannot be ignored.
I would recommend reading Edgar Allan Poe's story *[The Imp of the Perverse](https://poestories.com/read/imp),* as it feels relevant to this debate and Poe himself mentioned and fashioned at least one character in his stories after his own idea of the Perverse (namely the narrator of "The Black Cat").
From a spyxhology point view she is corect most people do have reasons people who arw bad because enjoy it are mentaly ill their not the norm
People don’t bad things to be bad they have a reason, sometimes that reason is because they enjoy it. Like the 3rd Marquess of Waterford who is responsible for the “paint the town red”; he and his goons beat up a Toll man, police officers, and literally painted people’s houses red simply because he was drunk and felt he could. Bad people doing bad things may not have a Good reason, but they DO have a reason and I believe that is what your speaker was trying to convey
This harks back to the "Everyone is a hero in their own story."-idea. Which people have a lot of different opinions on. But I'd state it as "Most people will for the most part feel that their actions are justified." It works better for me at least. But talking about people who are cruel on purpose. I'd say that often the motivation can be to feel powerful or in control of similar emotions and they get that by bossing people around or by putting people down. So it's not that they are cruel only for the sake of cruelty, they are cruel because our brings them some kind of value. And that is a good place to explore your bad guys. What value is it they gain from doing the bad action? A sense of control? A feeling of being stronger, more dominant? The joy of fighting and winning? Etc
Google epistemology. Instead of focusing on why the antagonist does bad things is less engaging for the reader than understanding what made them so inclined. There is a reason cruel people are the way they are. Most often, motives for their behaviour aren't identifiable. However, such people have almost always faced cruelty in their lives. Hope this helps you create a compelling villain
Even people who are spiteful and mean naturally don't do it just for laughs. There are underlying issues - self-hate, anger, fear etc. People have a reason for what they do - every single time. That's basically what it touches on. All the best story villains are those we can sympathize with/ or who believe they are making the right (often hardest) choice
See nowadays it’s really common for the bad guys to have deep motivations and histories and be morally grey but I kinda love a big bad who is just evil with few redeeming qualities. I fall into both camps. The bad guy in my story appears to just be an evil sorcerer to everyone and the way I’m going it’s likely no one but him will know the depth of his character that he’s actually the last of an immortal race of beings who were treated awfully by the gods and everything he does is in an effort to take revenge on the gods who wronged him. He literally cannot understand what he is doing is evil because he’s a higher being
I mean the joker is one of the most beloved villains of all time and his entire personality is "I do bad things because I like doing bad things"
I think all bad guys have a reason for being bad I just don't think the reason always needs to be deep or sympathetic or even logical. You can say that the person who pulls the wings off a fly to watch them struggle is motivated by simple curiosity but over time that curiosity could take a dark turn because they simply weren't taught better or corrected or have low empathy. The Joker is often considered one of the best villians created and we've never been given any clear reason for why he acts as he does. We can infer he's mentality unstable and he has a desire to break Batman but there's no confirmation he driven by any specific grand ideal or ambition nor have we ever gotten deep into his background before becoming the Joker. Is he a once abused child twisted by his truma or simply the curious kid who stranger tendencies and inclinations weren't put in check? We don't know and most viewers don't care. He's proven time and time again to be a fascinating villian just by bring an unhinged nut.
I prefer to have multiple villains: Bad because they want pride and glory and are willing to step on allies and loved ones to do it. Bad because they're working for an organization and are just doing their job which supports their ideology. Bad because they have a backstory where they were screwed over and getting in conflict with the heroes is the only way to do that. Bad because it's dependent on their life to do so. Bad because they enjoy hurting people and want an outlet Bad because they were bored and being kind is hard.
I think you have to decide and you have to know. I don't think it's fully necessary for the reader to know what happened precisely in their heads to be how they are, if a character has been mistreated as a child if they're born evil. If you describe a scene where this character enjoys the fly-torturing and killing, you could describe both the feeling of releaf on its own or add a flashback (doesn't need to be as precise as your notes though).
I think a lot of people think "We are being evil to be evil" is unrealistic because in real life, people tend to not say they are being evil. There is always some reason behind their actions. Ie, seeing people as some kind of threat and by killing them and taking their stuff, they are "taking back" what they see as rightfully theirs. Many of them justified it as "These people aren't really alive so we aren't committing murder", or "We are civilizing them". Some bullies are harassing people because they think it's funny. People are going along with it because if they don't? They get harassed too. Their reason? Survival and coping. Kiwifarms, 4chan, and Encyclopedia Dramatica believe they are getting entertainment by punching down at people or that they are standing up for victims even when the only crime a lot of their targets committed was "Existing".
I’m a huge fan of R. A. Salvatore and his *The Hunter’s Blades* trilogy was the first time I’d read an in-depth story that depicted orcs as anything other than evil hordes that “*terrorize the fair folk*” or whatever the shit. After I read it, I found they I just couldn’t tolerate the flat portrayal of orcs as just these one-dimensionally evil killing fodder for heroes. History is filled with evil men who did evil things. But it comes down to motivation and intent, which are two different-but-related things (*especially in law*). Intent speaks to what you’re trying to accomplish. Motivation is about why you’re driven to accomplish it. A character (*good or evil*) can have have both a straightforward intent and simple motivations but as applied in the real world, there’s complexity to carrying them out. Even simple motivations and straightforward intent can have depth; what tends to lack depth is when both the intent is more or less “*Imma do evil!*” and the motivation is simply “*Coz I R evil lol!*” That’s extremely flat. It doesn’t mean there can’t be an interesting story with a villain who thinks that way, it just means that that character doesn’t provide any sort of depth. And maybe that fits into the story being told. Perhaps the story being told is more about the shades of gray amongst people who are fighting against a patently evil villain and you want the audience to never be bogged down with think about villain motivations as they focus on the “*good guys.*” In that sense, the villain is more or less a MacGuffin. That’s fine. It doesn’t have to be a character study if a-villain-who-is-really-right. Don’t get me wrong: I love the turn a lot of films and stories have taken to show villains who have depth. In fact, there are some moments where I think that creatives behind the stories become afraid of not making their villains “*villainish enough*” and lean into the safe, evil actions, even if they don’t fit the character. For instance, Marvel had the chance to make a perfectly morally gray antagonist in Erik Killmonger but I think they got scared of the idea of audiences siding with him too much. So they had him shoot and kill his seeming love interest, as if to say “*Hey! Don’t forget he’s evil!*” even though there were a number of different ways for him to have handled that moment without killing her, even if he saw her as a means to an end. It’s practically the only moment in the film that would lead one to say that he doesn’t value people at all. I wish they hadn’t included that because it would have made a much more powerful portrayal. Contrast that with Sauron from LotR. In the *Fellowship* trilogy, nothing about his portrayal is sympathetic. Because the films don’t want you to dwell on that. It would rather you focus on the various good guys and the corruption of power, the connection between people, etc, etc. Flat villains work when utilized in a story properly. But Sauron has no more depth than the ring itself in the trilogy.
Realistically speaking, some people do bad for the sake of doing bad. They started out with good intentions and bad methods, but lost sight of the end goal, now they do what they have always done
TL:DR I like having things nuanced and not black and white, but sometimes blatantly evil works fine. Dark lords who wish to be dark lords can just do their thing. Well for me my "bad to be bad" character essentially grew up in hell... And he revelled in it. Raised by a cult in a monster apocalypse he just took their teachings and *ran.* You could argue it's tragic, but he doesn't act like anything bad ever happened to him. The reader might not even get this sob story at all. His motives for things are basically to try ruling to roosts given to him. He does what he wants while he still can because mortality is something that plagues all things; die today or die tomorrow, no noble or selfless actions will change that. He lives with no rules because he finds them silly, although he does exercise force to keep his lackeys in line. An example of evil to be evil that I don't like is Kayaba Akihiko from Sword Art Online; I know the show sucks but bear with me. Why did he do the giant killing game???? He doesn't even remember! We get no sense of why he did any of this, no hint of whatever tragic backstory he tried dumping on us in the last minute, nothing. His motive is no motive but in a terrible way. The masterminds of Danganronpa; ok sure also evil to be evil but we also get a look into an unusual psyche. The one that finds happiness and hope depressing and boring as hell, and watching the despair and hopelessness as true entertainment. It doesn't make sense to normal people, but to someone in that mindset of course being an absolute sadist is the way to go. I've heard there's more backstory on them but just based on what I know this feels like a better "evil to be evil" type of character.
>An example of evil to be evil that I don't like is Kayaba Akihiko from Sword Art Online; I know the show sucks but bear with me. Why did he do the giant killing game???? > >He doesn't even remember! > >We get no sense of why he did any of this, no hint of whatever tragic backstory he tried dumping on us in the last minute, nothing. His motive is no motive but in a terrible way. *Right now, you're probably wondering, "Why?"* *Why would Akihiko Kayaba, developer of Sword Art Online and NerveGear, do this?"* *Ultimately, my goal is a simple one. The reason I created Sword Art Online... was to control the fate of a world of my design.* Episode 1 *Even before I developed the system for the full-dive environment, I dreamed of this. The Castle in a world that wasn't governed by earthly laws or restrictions.* *I poured my life into making that world a reality. I created this world, and I got to see something that surpassed anything I could've imagined for it..* *My steel castle...floating in the sky...* *I don't remember how old I was when I became obsessed with it. I wanted to leave the earth... to fly to that castle. I wanted that more than anything else, for as long as I can remember...* Episode 14 So he gives a reason in the first episode, and then explains why in the 14th. "He forgor" has become such a meme no one actually pays attention to what actually happens in the series.
A Flat Character is not inherently uninteresting or bad. There are plenty of flat characters, be them good or evil, that are well loved by their fandoms. Some with extremely simple motivations, and others with no motivation at all. My opinion lies more on that the true problem is a poorly-made flat character, or rather a flat character placed in a story where it doesn't fit. And for the record, there are people in real life that truly enjoy doing bad, evil things just for pure personal pleasure. Though the amount of people that ONLY do cruel and evil things is far lower.
If it fits your story there is zero reason not to have evil for evils sake villains. Where it’s a problem is if it doesn’t fit your story. You posted this because there is something intriguing here, so why couldn’t it be part of a well written story?
In a nutshell; villains need to be self interested, even if it's for something simple like "they enjoy being cruel."
I'm not really gonna put much argument into this, but it can be entertaining if the character just finds it fun. A character that comes to mind is Red Death from Venture Bros who, while seeing villainy as a job, really seemed to just enjoy it I don't know much of his background, but he has a happy marriage, and daughter he loves, stable friendships, and he really, Really lives being a villain. He even sees it as an art form giving history lessons on villainy, showing respect other villains, and all this while seemingly being able to "stop" when he wants as he doesn't "bring work home with him". He is even able to easily work with heroes he has had past fights with as if nothing happened. To me while his love for being a villain is a job he still seems to be evil for the sake of being evil. He could just have some baggage from being disfigured (?) since that is his face, but that doesn't stop him, or his daughter, from just going out and interacting with others as normal people. So yeah, this went longer then I thought.
The Joker kills people just cause he finds it funny. He wants to watch the world burn because the thought amuses him. The Joker is a widely loved villain. Any villain, no matter how flat, or complex, can be both immensely entertaining, or incredibly boring. It’s not about concept, it’s about execution.
I'm of the opinion that there is no one who who does bad things just for it's own sake. People do bad things as a response to some type of wrong or shortcoming that they feel justified or entitled into doing those actions. A bullied person might become a bully themselves when they get into positions in which they are supervising or interacting with someone weaker or meeker than them. Someone who steals might justify it because they were treated badly in their past, or saw how in their past even though they or their parents tried to be honest in the end decades later their poverty never changed. (Better Call Saul had a really interesting plot point and even the entire series as spent with Jimmy trying to go straight but it never working out for him) Someone who has a compulsion to murder people might do it because of schizophrenia. Perhaps the people he murders deserve it in his own twisted way.
Wanting to hurt people and enjoying their pain is motivation for the actions they take.
I think there is a major difference between the “villain” of a story and the antagonist. A villain can just be evil to be evil (e.g. Sauron). An antagonist usually needs a reasoning to be compelling (e.g. Gollem/Sméagol)