The villain I loved

Started by Blizzard, November 01, 2009, 12:08:13 pm

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Blizzard

November 01, 2009, 12:08:13 pm Last Edit: March 31, 2010, 07:29:04 am by Blizzard
Seriously, when was the last time you saw a villain and you actually like him? I tell you there's far too few of those around. Now you probably wonder what makes a good villain. Well, there are a few things I could mention.



1. Alignment

We live in a world where nothing is just black or white. When is the last time you saw a perfectly good person or a perfectly evil person? I'll tell you. Never. Besides, black and white are boring. They are predictable. Nobody likes to figure out the entire story of a book in the first 10 pages or figure out how the movie's gonna end in the first 10 minutes. Being a dick is not the same as being completely evil. Wanting to become the king of the world isn't evil. Stealing a baby's lollipop, now that is evil. Intentionally causing pain to somebody else (especially somebody who can't defend themselves) in order to satisfy your own needs is very, very evil. More about that in point 4.



2. Humor

Villains usually aren't funny. They can be ridiculed by the hero or by somebody else, but they aren't funny themselves. If your hero (of somebody else) can ridicule the villain, then he can't be taken that seriously. Don't get me wrong, you might want your villain to be a figure of ridicule (i.e. Mario's archenemy Bowser). It all depends on what kind of villain you want. But in the end villains themselves usually don't make the jokes.



3. Motivation

"OMG, I'M SO GONNA DESTROY THE UNIVERSE NOW" Erm, I don't think so. Who cares if you want to destroy the universe. Seriously, stop acting like a child. Yes, children sometimes are like that. "I want to do something just because I feel like it." Except if your villain is actually nuts and completely unpredictable (in which case you would find better stuff for him to do), I suggest that you give him reason for his actions. Also, powerhungry heartless bastards are completely misinterpreted. "I want to take over the world to rule it!" Who exactly says that he's gonna be a bad ruler? What if he'd take the land into the next golden age? And you stopped him, hero. Great job, idiot. Causing pain or causing pain for the own better are probably the only really evil actions I can think of. Everything else is just childish, don't you agree? "I want this and that."



4. Good is evil and evil is good

Selfishness is one of the most expressive human flaws. Seeing somebody satisfying that selfishness usually fills us with envy. When somebody satisfies their selfishness over the pain of others, then instead it fills us with disgust. We have somebody we can hate. Yes, that bad person did get what he wanted at the cost of others' suffering. But we have needs, too. And seeing somebody satisfying their needs like that gives us an excuse to look down on that person even though that somebody has satisfied their needs. We hate somebody for being happier than we are (even though we believe to have a valid excuse for it). Who's the real monster here?



5. Good becomes evil and evil becomes good

One of the definitely most interesting villains had a touch for good things. Some of them did all evils actually for a good cause. Some of them have mercy on their enemies. And some of them simply aren't cowards. You're still not on the side of the villain, but you can't help but respect him. Is he lame? No. He just spared the hero. True, he was an ass and acted completely superior and arrogant, but he did spare the hero. Of course that makes the hero raging. Can you feel the emotion? Can you see how powerful it is to give the bad guy a good trait. Suddenly he actually can act superior. He has something to back it up. Doesn't that make you even more raging? Oh yes, it does. Welcome to the good villain and bad hero. Suddenly you find yourself on the other side and you don't mind as long as you can take out your enemy. Imagine giving that feeling a perfectly normal and righteous person. Don't you think that kind of "hypnosis" of the player is amazing?



6. Originality

And of course, the evil king will kidnap the princess. Come up with something more original. Or at least come up with something more complicated. An interesting story isn't completely original. In fact it's almost not original at all. But what makes a story interesting is how you line up events. Cause and consequence is your key term here. Original is cool, but almost everything good has already been used up. Everything that is original is usually idiotic because the only "original" ideas that nobody has used yet are the ones that suck. Remember, original spice is good, but an original meal isn't. Make a story that makes sense and that has content.



7. Logic and reason

Your villain was after some sort of power that was promising to be able to give him godlike powers. And suddenly he destroys a city. Wait what? Why would he do that? What does he gain by it? Oh, he stopped the heroes for a bit. But wouldn't something else be much better? Why spend 2 days in preparing to destroy a city and finally destroy it so you can delay the heroes for 1 day? In case you didn't notice, you just lost a day.
Another example. A villain destroys a city to scare the heroes. Or did he? Maybe he wanted to provoke the heroes? What reason would he have to destroy a city just like that? If you keep reasoning hidden for a while, you can make a villain much more intriguing even if in the end it actually ends up being quite a lame reason. Maybe his plan didn't even work. Or maybe it totally worked. The same goes for heroes, but we're not discussing them here right now.



8. Mystery

Mystery is one of the best things that exist. Plot twists are cool, but multiple plot twists can be better if done well. If the heroes already have assumptions about the villain's intentions, it will not really be a big surprise when they find out that they were right. But it will be amazing if the heroes are so sure about some assumptions, yet suddenly it turns out the villain has planned something completely else. Confusing, isn't it? Let me give you an example on this as well. Imagine an evil knight wants to steal the magical crystal. Why would he do that? Well, the heroes figure out that he wants to use the magical powers to summon the fairy goddess to grant him the immortality. And everything indicates that they are right. And when it finally comes to this and the heroes fail to prevent the bad guy from taking the crystal, they find out it's not immortality he's after. Instead he captures the fairy goddess and wants to use her powers to create an army of powerful monsters. The villain figured out that immortality won't help him much in destroying the kingdom. Well, that was unexpected, wasn't it?



9. Views

Why is somebody seen as evil? Maybe his actions seem to be evil, but are they supposed to be evil? Is the villain even a bad guy? What if he only killed the king to prevent a war with another kingdom where thousands would have died? Good and evil are mere points of views. This pretty much brings us back to point 1. There is no absolute evil and absolute good. Good and evil have always been relative. Sure, you can make something like absolute evil trying to consume everything part of your story, but do you really need it? Wouldn't an insane villain suffice who raped and killed his own sister and is now trying to revive her regardless if in the process everybody else has to die because he's irrationally in love with his own sister? Think about it. Which of the last two "villains" was more shocking?



10. Love him or hate him

You either love a villain or you're disgusted by him. Either he's a clever, charming and simply awesome guy you actually wish to play with or he's a completely twisted, mindf***ed and heartless bastard who repels you with his every single cell (like the second example in point 9). Everything in between you don't care about. A villain has to cause certain emotions to a hero. And the player has to identify himself with the hero. If you manage that, you have a great game feel. Of course creating the proper villain to cause the emotions in the hero and link the hero to the player isn't an easy task.
You think I'm talking black and white here? No. This is exactly the opposite. It's a manifestation of emotion towards something that isn't black or white because black and white are boring and can't cause any emotion (assuming boredom can be counted absence of emotion) because you just don't care.
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Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Aqua

Looks very good, Blizz.
It was funny at parts and provided some good examples.

It really made me think about my own villains in my stories and see if they are too black and white.
(Thankfully, I don't think they are :D)

Starrodkirby86

Moved to Tutorial Da---Hey! >8U :V:

Good to see more of this being continuously drilled into our heads. Eventually everyone will get it right now.  :roll: x3

Yeah, great read, great read. I definitely agree how subjective and relative Good and Evil are. Yes yes.


AQUA YOU BEAT ME HOW DARE YOU

What's osu!? It's a rhythm game. Thought I should have a signature with a working rank. ;P It's now clickable!
Still Aqua's biggest fan (Or am I?).




Blizzard

LMAO, you two. I was talking to Branden and suddenly I saw the matrix. So I thought I should type it down before it goes out of my head again. I've been doing relatively uncreative work all week so this was kind of way to let some steam out since I didn't go out yesterday. xD
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
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Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Jalm

Quote from: Blizzard on November 01, 2009, 12:08:13 pm


2. Humor

Villains usually aren't funny.


The lovable, insane, entertaining villains are usually awesome. They can do horrible, terrible things, but still have half the audience's full support. The other half will hate him and don't find burning orphanages funny.

Anywho, nice read. Very philosophithic-ic...cal. Yeah.

Blizzard

entertaining > funny
Burning orphanages is entertaining because we get to hate him. But yeah, it's not funny (regardless of what Companion-Cube says ;>_>).
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Calintz


Orici

Great tutorial but now i think i need to re-write half of my game's story  :P 
you deserve a lvl up!

lol at google: ShowHide



Blizzard

That's a good thing. It means that your villains will become better. :) You should combine it with NAMKCOR's tutes for stories. Those go well together.
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Starrodkirby86

Quote from: Blizzard on November 01, 2009, 03:43:47 pm
That's a good thing. It means that your villains will become better. :) You should combine it with NAMKCOR's tutes for stories. Those go well together.
http://forum.chaos-project.com/index.php?topic=4906 + http://forum.chaos-project.com/index.php?topic=2700.0 + http://forum.chaos-project.com/index.php?topic=2404.0 (Oooh, threesome)...

What kind of offspring would that make? =3

(I'm thinking of...a pretty solid n'interesting game...)

What's osu!? It's a rhythm game. Thought I should have a signature with a working rank. ;P It's now clickable!
Still Aqua's biggest fan (Or am I?).




fugibo

I'd just like to point out the the Joker was pretty freakin' awesome, and he was pure evil.

Blizzard

Did you actually read what I posted? *points to point 9* The Joker wasn't pure evil, he was twisted and mindfucked.
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

legacyblade

From the standpoint of someone who writes stories, and has a job as an editor (I have more than one job, sue me :P), I really agree with most of what you said Blizz. I hope everyone incorporates this advice into their stories. You get sick of the classic Evil Overlord, you know?

Blizzard

I have one actual job and several honorary side jobs, so what? xD
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

legacyblade

I just didn't want to sound like someone who claimed to be a professional in everything :P I just do tech support, web design, and story editing as a job, with graphic work, game making, and writing as a side.

That aside, it does stand that this is an awesome tutorial that deserves kudos!

*levels up blizz*