Tagged: villains

Discussion: Villains

For me, a good villain is practically a necessity in most books.  I really do love great villains but I realize that not everyone’s definition of a ‘great villain’ is the same.  So here’s a brief explanation of mine:

Villains have to have believable backstories to explain why they’re so terrible.  It could be that they’re more morally ambiguous than most people and fought their way to the top, losing their morals all the way.  Or it could be that they thought the world had done an injustice to them and wanted to strike back.  But what I hate the most is villains that are evil for no reason other than they’re crazy or just want to watch the world burn.

Even with the best authors, villains are hard to pull off because it’s so easy to stray into the realm of cliché with them.  They should have doubts about what they’re doing but not too many doubts or they risk becoming a hero.  They should commit atrocities, but too many and it just looks like the author is aiming for senseless violence.

Some of my personal favourite villains (from all sorts of mediums) include: Baron Scarpia from Puccini’s Tosca, The Governor from The Walking Dead, Tbubui from Scroll of Saqqara, Niccoló Machiavelli from The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel and Satan from Paradise Lost.

But what I want to know is: who are your favourite villains?  What makes a ‘good’ villain?  What villain clichés do you absolutely hate?

My Favourite Villains

This is the first article in a weekly series.  Today I will be covering my favourite type of character: villains.  Villains are the spice in novels and well-developed villains turn good novels into great novels.  Here I will list my top 5 favourite villains in descending order.  Warning: this may contain spoilers.

1.  Niccoló Machiavelli from The Magician by Michael Scott.

If Michael Scott is good at one thing, it’s creating complex characters.  Machiavelli may be a villain, but he certainly has flashes of good and his backstory is quite sad.  He seems to reluctantly work for Dee and the Dark Elders, but he is also very pragmatic about it.  Throughout the series I have been unable to truly figure him out, although his character does take an interesting turn in the penultimate book, The Warlock.  I really hope to see more of him in The Enchantress because he’s a truly fascinating character.  I guarantee you, he is one of the best villains you will ever see in YA fiction (and regular fiction, for that matter).

2.  Satan from Paradise Lost by John Milton.

Yes, this is probably a pretty controversial choice, but as a character, John Milton’s Satan is a wonderful villain.  Charismatic, powerful and completely evil, he is the epitome of a villain.  He believes what he is doing is right and will do anything to achieve his goal.  After being thrown out of Heaven, Satan goes to Earth and convinces Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge in order to corrupt mankind and spite God.  The only reason John Milton’s Satan is not my favourite villain is because he’s portrayed as pure evil, rather than having any real redeeming qualities. Continue reading →