Lately, I’ve been disappointed by literary bad guys (or girls) who excel at evil without realizing their potential as characters. Perhaps you recognize some of these:
The Megalomaniac
The antagonist is a Machiavellian lunatic who stops at nothing to become the most powerful person on earth. This type of villain enjoys celebrated precedents in figures like Goldfinger, and Dr. No, but reproductions of these characters tend be flat and stereotyped. If world domination is your life’s ambition, you’re exactly like to every other megalomaniac on the planet.*
The Victim of a Childhood Trauma
Some authors resort to simple psycho-pop explanations for misbehavior, but these characters lack authenticity unless the psychosis is developed in the novel.
Bad to the Bone
These characters have mean personalities and engage in inappropriate behavior while planning evil in their spare time. Isn’t it more interesting to make the evil-doer a tiny bit likable, slightly vulnerable or even occasionally sympathetic?
Antagonists deserve as much attention as protagonists and have equal rights to be multifaceted characters. Consider Artemis Fowl, Severus Snape or Gollum. At times they’re easy to hate, and then they do something to generate empathy.
*There is a time and a place for megalomaniacs, but that’s a separate post.
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3 comments:
Great topic! I think a major mistake writers make is not investing enough time developing the villian. He needs to be as real as the protag for the story arc to matter.
Thanks, Angela. I have a tendency to make my antagonists too evil in early drafts. I have to go back later and make them human.
More excellent observations. It is my biggest complaint about a lot of fantasy -- the cardboard antagonists/villains. Yes, I'm talking about you, Mr. Sauron. You too, Monsieur
Voldemort. It's the main reason I quit reading Potter after #4. I've quit reading other books for the same reason.
I, on the other hand, might err too much in the other direction -- especially since I'm working in the fantasy genre. My antagonists are perhaps too nuanced for this culture, and for boys in particular. My stories do not have a palpable sense of threat throughout, only in the second half. Sigh. It's the way I have to write, marketable or not.
I think Hammer will be a good antagonist. But Tayne's story does not have a villain/antagonist. It might be why I floundered for so long. When I go back to it, I intend for it to have a "palpable sense of threat throughout."
Well, I guess an antagonist/villain can be STRONG without being CARDBOARD.
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