How to write a villain?

[Chocolate]

We all know the villains are the ones that truly makes a story interesting. Does anybody here have tips/advice on building an antagonist?

[doitlikeomar69]

I saw his backstory and what's the villains Goals is what I think make him interesting

[nickolaidas]

Don't say how awesome or threatening he is.

Show it.

Don't make him omnipotent or flawless all the time.

Have him acknowledge the existence of other characters besides the protagonist. By him elevating the supporting cast, he gets elevated as well.

Insinuate he has deeper motives for his behaviour, but don't be in a rush to explain it.

Don't rush his entrance.

Don't rush his antagonism with the main character.

[faisalhussein394]

A villain is interesting when it has a purpose, its goal has to clash with that of the main protagonist.

There could be a point when you can feel sympathy to the villains if their backstory is depressing and what cause it to progress to where they are now.

So many people are not fond with Saturday morning cartoon antagonists.

We have to make them succeed in some point, which could reinforce our cheers for the heroes.

Even if they didn't get their goals, they should not give up. It's fascinating to see them struggle than just to run away for next time even if it caused them their life or get imprisoned.

Most importantly, their actions must be justified and sane, not dumb.

[Aims]

Make sure they have an actual motivation. Even if their logic is crooked and just, not that logical.
Why are they so mean to the protagonist? They view him as an enemy for some reason.
Why do they want to overthrow the government and take control? They just don't like how they run things and think they could to it better.
And stuff like that.

If you're planning on redeeming them, give them at least one redeemable quality and make sure to show that to the readers before the redemption arc, and make them earn it.

While it is important to make the villain look competent, for the sake of the story, try to not make the other characters into complete useless idiots, otherwise readers might get frustrated and just drop it, no one likes useless protagonists.

[Lensing]

I can´t answer the question but I can tell you what I like as a reader / viewer.
I grew up watching Star Wars IV, V & VI, the great thing for my brother and me was that
not everything was explained about the villains, there was a lot of room for our own fantasy
and this is a huge difference for me between good & bad writing. Don´t explain everything
about the characters, let the reader have the chance to look forward to something and discover
something or just let some information in the dark forever and give the reader the chance
for imagination. Darth Vader and Palpatine in the original trilogy, there was a lot of mystery
about the villains, some was reveiled to the viewer, a lot of things were not told.
In the beginning Darth Vader just talks about the emperor and they don´t show him.
There is no real explaination (original trilogy) why Darth Vader wears the suit, why he
was part of the dark side. The emperor was super mysterious, he has those weird advisors
which were not explained, nobody knew where he was living and so on.
Darth Vader is not 100% evil which is great writing too

I think that´s the best way of writing, look at the villains that you love and what you love
about them as a reader and then use that on your writing

[Geklelo]

Try to give them a proper backstory. Not an "I'm evil because I have different means to achieve my goals" backstory, but rather a "I'm good at being bad" one. Personally, seeing how all villains now have a tragic backstory is boring. Bad people exist, psycopaths exist. If you're going for a "Dio Brando", don't give the villain a tragic past.

You could also focus on a rivalry MC-MV. Specially if you wat a morally grey story.

Don't make them perfect, make them smart. Show how he acts rather than his actions.Show how easily he did something, then unravel the steps. Try to not go too crazy though.

[simonitropunk]

To me, I want my villains to be threatening that it would intimidate the readers.

Backstories are cool but some can stay total ambiguous. You're not sure if this villain is giving you the truth because he seems to distort his past quite a bit and don't make much sense but that makes him a bit interesting and let the readers come up with their own interpretation.

My current villain, Monté, is threatening and a brute and you may never when he'll turn against you for any reason. He's quite the murderer that he crushes people's skulls by his bare hands. He rarely give out the failed ones a second chance and 9 out of 10 his henchmen might get killed by him. He lavishes in people fearing him.

Dr. Robotnik from Sonic the Hedgehog games is my all time favorite villain ever. He's the only villain, from the start from the franchise, has the balls to bring the fight to Sonic on almost every zone and not wait by the end of the game to face him and that's admirably evil.

Besides, Dr. Robotnik themes from every game the best songs and that adds more to his awesomeness. ALL HAIL ROBOTNIK!!!

[Aeneas1]

Keep them offscreen. Build up an atmosphere of ominous dread about them from the way their minions act or how people talk about them - for a good example, please refer to Sauron from J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (do NOT watch the films except the Bakshi one, they will not give you this atmosphere of dread).

[nickolaidas]

I'm somewhat in the middle. A tragic past is fine, as long as you're not using it as a means to redemption or sympathy, but rather as a way to make the reader understand the villain's motives better.

One-dimensional villains are fine in saturday morning cartoons, but in a supposedly deep story they're going to make it seem lazy, in my opinion.

[Geklelo]

That's right. There has to be a middle ground between "absolute edgelord" and "my wife has a terminal illness and I suffer from PTSD".

[powerplantanimations]

I disagree with this statement since it depends on the story or what the writer is trying to say.

But if I were to build an antagonist I'd take the Batman method and have he/she exploit a small character flaw to flesh the protag out. For me personally, an antagonist is interesting when they make the protag take their own medicine.

Riddler = Batman's intelligence.
Penguin = Use of the law and how he manipulates the system
Bane = Batman's strength
Scarecrow = Batman's use of fear.
Clayface = Batman's use of identity and how he can literally be anyone
Two Face = Batman and Bruce Wayne becoming separate entities
Poison Ivy = Batman's lust.
Catwoman = Batman's broken love life
Man-Bat = Batman trying to be a literal bat
Deacon Blackfire = Batman hitting his mental limit.
Moth-Man = Batman's escapism in becoming a caped crusader.
Azrael = Batman justifying himself
Mr. Freeze = Batman being emotionless.
KGBeast = Batman meeting his physical match.

There's more Batman villains, but I think you get the point.

[system]

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