So as the questions says. Do villains need to have a tragic backstory to be "good" or "convincing"?
Asking because honestly they seem harder to write than a hero
So what do you think a villain needs? is a sad backstory necessary for a villain?
Sep '22
Oct '22
| 0 | spongebob-mr.gif tenor.com |
There are 53 replies with an estimated read time of 7 minutes.
No, they don't. What a villain needs to be "good" is to be an effective antagonist to the hero - somebody who the hero has to work at, fight, and sacrifice in order to defeat. Outside of that, the normal rules of character development apply (must want something and be using their agency to get it, must take actions that make sense for their character to take, etc.).
That said, "good" and "memorable" are two very different things. A tragic backstory can help, but it's not needed. Hannibal Lecter was one of the most compelling villains in fiction long before Thomas Harris decided to give him a backstory. Emperor Palpatine has no tragic backstory, and he made it into the modern mythology. Sauron has no tragic backstory. To be memorable, there must be something that sets the villain apart from the crowd (Darth Vader's visual design, for example).
And yes, a memorable villain is hard to pull off.
Villains don't need a sad backstory at all, no. They simply need to believe that they deserve what they're trying to get, even if they don't, or at least that what they're doing is necessary, even if it isn't.
Giving them a sympathetic backstory is an easy way to explain their bad actions, like maybe your villain wants to kill all the dragons because a dragon killed their parents, but you can just as easily make your villain a spoiled brat who has never wanted for anything in life but still feels hard done by because they got a brown pony for their eighth birthday when they wanted a grey one.
One of my favourite villain motivation quotes comes from the killer in a horror movie titled 8mm - and even though I only ever saw the movie once, it has stuck with me ever since:
I wasn't beaten. I wasn't molested. Mommy didn't abuse me. Daddy never raped me. I'm only what I am. And that's all there is to it! There's no mystery. Things I do, I do them because I like them! Because I want to!
It's chilling - it leaves you with nothing to cling to, nothing to explain away the evil, just its existence.
A villain doesn't "need" anything, except to oppose your protagonist.
Your protagonist is a villain in their story, after all.
If you want a sympathetic villain, then write them as you would a protagonist, with agreeable morals and a story that makes sense, but a convincing villain doesn't need that at all.
A villain with a sad backstory (eg: my cousin killed my village and I'm sad so I'm gonna be edgy and blow up the world) is less convincing then say a being that was created to show humanity a mirror of their negativity, and therefore it's in it's nature to harm.
Both ways can be done well and poorly, but it's just up to your writing. In my opinion, a good sympathetic villain example is one who could be a "twist villain", but even after the reveal they're the same character (I know, how could people mess this one up?). They still have good morals and generally do things for the sake of good, but they are in your hero's way. This character can be a complete asshole, (maybe not genocidal maniac unless you're an AMAZING writer) and the audience will probably be able to sympathize with them.
There are no clear rules to this, so just write what you want, and don't think that you have to put the archetype of 'villain' in boxes. And, I guess think about how you want your audience to feel in response to them. That's important too.
Absolutely not. Overly sarcastic productions went further into this on the trope talk on pure evil, but basically, if you try to make a pure evil or even just normal evil villain (as in, not an antagonist which is something different) adding a sympathetic backstory or motivation will give them the worst of both âsympathetic redeemable antagonistâ and âis a villain because itâs funâ and thatâs just bad writing
I like to do what Toby Fox did for Spamton: Have one villain with a really sad backstory, and then have another villain who's nothing more than a total RATHOLE pulling on the strings behind the scenes. It really gets interesting that way, I feel, but that's just me.
I think 'sad backstories' have gotten so ubiquitous because a lot of people assume * reasoning * automatically makes a story better.
The existence of magic in a story is okay, but a * magic system * is better. Natural worldbuilding is okay, but * lore * is better.
And in this case, a villain doing bad things is okay, but doing bad things for a justifiable(-ish) reason you can explain to the audience is better. And the easiest way to lend logic to destructive behavior is to have it motivated by sadness or anger. =/
Of course, like other people have said, there are all kinds of valid motivations for villainy; 'hurt people hurt people' isn't the only available option.
And honestly, sometimes a 'backstory' is just none of the audience's business. ÂŻ_(ă)_/ÂŻ Other things can be more important...like the impact the villains are having on the actual plot, or their character development in the present-day. That's really all a villain needs to be convincing-- to matter to the story, in whatever way serves it best.
I'd say it's not always needed. I tend to write them in if it makes sense as an explanation for who they are as a person, sometimes for sympathy. If their motivations are pretty clear without the backstory, then I don't feel the need to include it. Most of my villains tend to be atrocious human beings, so I don't feel that bad for them 
Me writing Anopheles' /24's backstory:
I personally hate sad back stories on villains. The main thing a villain needs to think is they are not the villain. Hitler didn't think he was a badguy. He thought he was helping germany becoming a superpower of europe again. Genghis Khan was only a badguy to western countries. To his own people, and most of his conquered territories, he was actually pretty chill and people had lots of freedom of movement and commerce. But he was literally the devil to his enemies. Very few people are bad for bad sake. Few if any would-be world conquering people did it for the sake of ruling the world. They are usually much deeper motivations to what they want to do. The best thing you can hear from your audience is for them to say "I don't agree with the actions, but I understand."
Everyone does something for a reason.....sometimes the reason is simply that they are a jerk and want something without caring about how many people they need to harm in the proccess.
Haha gotta love Eggman 
Indeed I've always wondered about the theme parks so it's nice to see his "reason" behind it! I've always had a sense that he truly enjoyed what he put his time and mind into.
A sad backstory is useful if you wish to make a villain who is, to some degree, understandable or even pitiable. Or if you wanted to make their eventual destruction necessary but somehow regrettable.
Not all villains necessarily have a backstory that makes people sympathize with them
Backstories explain how and why the villain becomes a villain in general. There are villains who seem unredeemable morally, and there are others who seem to be like Heinz Doofenshmirtz or Megamind (Megamind doesn't harm people unlike Hal/Titan).
