Any tips on how to write an good villain?

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What makes a villain likable or enjoyable to your audience?

So far my villains roster includes:

1.A giant sized eighteen year old who has the mind of an eight year old

2.A psychic dictator who also has funded many educational and welfare programs.

3.A former slave and now a field marshal in an army, who is gifted with the power of cryokinisis as well as basic knife combat skills and stratigy.

4.A nine year old size shifting giant

5. clone who has to the power to absorb the anger of his opponent and boast his own psychic attacks.

5. Oh and psychic special forces that act like Spetznaz.

I would say that the keys to a good villain are 1.) giving him a reason for his madness, and 2.) not making him purely evil. For #1, a back-story describing how the villain ended up how he did works well, I'd say probably include some sort of traumatic/defining moment in his life. For #2, no villain should be evil simply to be evil, always give them a reason for what they do. And realize that no one is pure evil, so if you can show positive traits and actions as well it adds more depth to the character. And if the reader has to actively question whether the antagonist is truly in the right or wrong, then you know you've got some good stuff there!

These qualities make the best villains, in my opinion:

1. Greed. The villain wants more. It doesn't matter what, but villains usually want more power over others, whether this power comes through wealth, resources, knowledge, or destructive force, the villain always wants more.

2. Conceit. Villains operate under the belief that they deserve more than anyone else. They may express this openly, or only through their actions.

3. Contempt. Laws, customs, and the needs and wants of others simply don't matter to villains. They will go about their business as if these things do not exist, or that their existence is irrelevant to their plans.

4. Tenacity. A villain who keeps coming back no matter how many times you think he's been defeated makes for a more interesting story-arch than a series of progressively more powerful monsters.

5. Adaptability. They will enter into any relationship - personal, corporate, or political - to achieve their goals. They will assume different roles and identities, or completely drop out of sight for years, just to regroup their forces. They will learn new things from their mistakes and the mistakes of others, as well as from the tactics and technologies of their enemies and vassals. Even when the villain is reduced to wandering the streets, he must still adapt to his situation in order to rise above it.

6. Intelligence. It is not the weapon system that wins wars, but the tactical superiority derived from the villain's intelligence that directs it. It is one thing to destroy an enemy's homeworld by dropping an asteroid on it, but it is quite another for a villain to convince the enemy that it is his or her best interest to hand over rulership of that planet and serve as the villain's vassal - defeat takes many forms.

7. Schadenfreude. The villain always derives pleasure from the misfortunes of others. A smile, a smirk, and a sarcastic comment is all it takes for a villain to convey the idea that you are just one more ignorant peasant that is out of your league in trying to defeat someone so grand as the villain must be.

My favorite villain, by the way, is "Baal", one of the Gua'uld characters from Stargate-SG1. He was all of these thing, and more.


"Your defeat was inevitable. Now, serve your new god..."

If you ask me, the easiest thing in the world is to write a super-evil villain. That's why there's so many of them.

If you ask me, if you want your story to be more than popcorn... have a villain that if the tables were turned could be perceived as the hero. Say...

Mankind's getting overpopulated. The villain is the secretary general of the UN, who seizes control as a "one-world government", and institutes all sorts of draconian measures such as forced sterilizations after the first child, forced relocation to city-enclaves for the purpose of rewilding, etc. He's forced to massively revoke human rights in order to do this. Martial law is instituted. Our hero finds himself fighting for freedom against this oppressive regime and for the right to some unregulated babymaking.

So who's the hero? The man who instituted necessary measures to save our species and planet, or the terrorist who feels like his right to make lots of babies is more important than forcing the population down to a reasonable level?

I dunno, that's the best thing I could come up with off the top of my head. I like that kind of gray zone, like in Deadwood where Seth's lawful goodness often times endangered the town and Al's moral adaptability often saved it.

I don't know why villains can't be just completely evil any more. They don't have to be TOO cliche, but I don't want to feel bad for a bloodthirsty villain who kills and destroys because of some childhood trauma they suffered, and if they did they should have learned to not be so bitter and seek revenge on the world---oh wait, I just described myself.

I'm a cartoonist who makes "Disney-Style" characters, most of them humanized animals or fantasy creatures, so the bad guys are influenced a lot by classic Disney animation as well. One of my personal favorites is a goblin queen. Although she has typical goblin characteristics like green skin, horns and a wart here and there (although I've arranged them to look more like beauty marks), she is tall, thin, and curvaceous instead of short and fat (animated villains never seem to be proportioned normally, they're either tall and skinny, short and fat, or really buff). She wears a form-fitting gown that's bright red and decorated with yellow flames. She's a lot like a cobra, both in appearance and personality, making her quite different from the shorter, stockier, less intelligent goblins that serve her. I also created a bunch of evil aliens that look like assorted chocolates who invade Earth because they simply want more chocolate (greed) and don't care if they hurt anyone as long as they get it (uncaring). And a female superhero hippopotamus has to stop them (really) Of course they're not meant to be "serious" villains. My stories and cartoons aren't for the most part.

If you really want to motivate a character to do something totally despicable to others, I suggest you give them an inflated sense of personal superiority over their victims. History shows that even apparently "normal" people can commit the bloodiest atrocities against anyone they perceive as less than worthy human beings. Dehumanization is the key to rationalizing violence and injustice.

Too bad most villains I see in modern literature (especially in comic books, manga, and fanfic) are stereotypical bad guys with infinite resources, infinite power, and intimidating qualities.

Rarely do I see a villain who is just an ordinary, average person who is determined to get what he or she wants with little concern for those who get in the way - someone who is just as likely to manipulate actions from behind the scenes as he or she is to shoot someone in the face. Don Vito Corleone ("The Godfather") was an excellent example of this type of villain - he was the anti-hero of the series, and real people loved him.

Villains should have equal influence on the plot of the story as any other main character; and as such, villains should be at least as well-developed as the main characters.

If your villains are one-trick cliches, then your main characters are going to be just as bad, if not worse.

It depends on what you are going for. Do you want the villain to be an evil character or a tragic character, do you want him to be repulsive or attractive, ect. The important thing is that it's the personality of the character in the context of the story which determines whether it's good or not, not the external details.