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As an editor, a writer, and a former actor (and, in my younger days before deciding on a career in the arts, a would-be psychologist), I’ve spent a healthy chunk of my life thinking about human nature, an exploration that has always stood me in good stead in each of my career pursuits, and arguably in many areas of my life.
For much of my life I’ve been quick to espouse my core belief that human nature is basically good. Given a choice and the right impetus, most humans will fall on the side of kindness and generosity and compassion.
But with age and maturity and experience, I began to consider that the opposite can also be equally likely to be true: that given the right impetus and input, anyone might fall on the side of what we would commonly construe as evil.
The more I ponder this—and folks, I ponder it a lot more than one might imagine—the more I’ve come to a kind of ambivalent middle ground. Human beings are not inherently anything except animals. And like any other creature, we may act in ways that are considered “good” and ways that are considered “bad.” These propensities may be more marked in our species because of our higher-reasoning capacities and complex emotional systems (though of course for all we know many other creatures share the latter, and some likely share the former—I’m looking at you, octopi).
Character is arguably the most important craft element of storytelling: readers’ window into the story, our avatar, the vehicle in which we embark on whatever journey the storyteller takes us on
This is what fascinates me most about story, and our efforts as storytellers to create fully fleshed, relatable characters on the page. It’s a ridiculously tall order to orchestrate all the infinite elements that go into forming a conscious, mutable, endlessly complex living entity.
Character has always felt to me like the most important craft element of storytelling: readers’ window into the story, our avatar, the vehicle in which we embark on whatever journey the storyteller takes us on. Without being filtered through the lens of character, a story is just a plot, a treatment, a series of events that may have relatively little impact on us.
When your bad guys are really, really bad
So many stories, going all the way back to The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, and the Bible, in some way deal with the conflict between good and evil. As authors we’re urged to find nuance and depth in our antagonists, to make them more than just flat cardboard-cutout representations of badness.
Not only is that a useful approach in creating richly developed, believable characters, but it’s not a bad approach in life either, where everyone we know, including ourselves, may evince actions and behavior that can be movingly and impactfully “good,” and hurtfully or infuriatingly “bad.”
And yet many of the stories we create (and sadly some from real life) go well beyond those everyday good and bad choices most of us may make, to extremes of behavior and action that might be considered evil by anyone’s definition. Murderers, torturers, child abusers, genocidal fascists. Those who see people as obstacles or tools to obtaining what they want, rather than autonomous individuals with rights of their own.
As much as characters like these may be repellent in real life, they can make juicy villains in story, and they set up classic hero’s journeys of the real oldest story in the book: in more hopeful stories, good battling and ultimately triumphing over evil. Even in stories without a happy ending, though our hero may ultimately fail to defeat the evil forces, the attempt may at least open up a window of light for some better future.
With malevolent villains like this, and amid certain genre expectations, it may feel ridiculous to try to flesh out their characters by examining their difficult childhood, their trauma and tragedy they’ve survived that turn them into monsters, their complex mental and emotional damage or deficiencies.
Most fans of James Bond or superhero movies, of hardcore thrillers and suspense or action or horror stories, aren’t really interested in exploring the complex inner landscape and backstory that may be behind the archvillain’s actions: why Hannibal Lecter has such an appetite for human flesh and human suffering, why Nurse Ratched is such a terrifyingly inhumane caregiver, why Sauron is such an all-around evil son of a bitch. We just want to see them get their asses handed to them by the hero.
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So then do you resign yourself to writing one-dimensional villains in stories like that? Is it a matter of “giving the people what they want” and not troubling yourself too deeply over giving your antagonists ambiguities, nuance, and depth?
Writing compelling, believable antagonists
As much as my rational mature understanding tells me that it’s unlikely humans are predisposed toward either good or evil, here’s why at my core I can’t seem to let go of the idea that there is a predominant seed of decency and magnificence within us, if only we give it the right food and fertilizer and plenty of water and sunshine.
It’s because stories like this exist. Because since time immemorial, probably since the first cave drawings where the big bad bison was coming after the stick-figure Neanderthal, humans have been captivated by this tale as old as time: good versus evil, ordinary people facing the trials and tribulations of the world, both ordinary and extraordinary, and battling to protect what matters most to them: their loved ones, way of life, community, the world. I think we all dream of a better world in which evil does not touch us or the things we love, even if we may have differing and even skewed ideas of what that evil is.
Thinking of your characters this way is what can help you keep them three-dimensional and relatable to your readers, even when you are creating the most seemingly unconscionable of antagonists. It’s what can create classic and enduring villains: that sense that there but for the grace of feeding the wrong wolf go any of us.
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It’s what Jung called the shadow side we all have, the dark side of us we may fear or hate or even refuse to acknowledge, but which hits an uncomfortable and shattering chord inside us when we see it in our stories. We are really rooting against our own worser impulses, the sides of us we desperately want to vanquish, most of us, and (correctly) fear we never can.
As something of a lifelong psychology nerd, I’m fascinated by sociological experiments that delve into human nature, like the famous (though now reconsidered) marshmallow experiment on delayed gratification, or teacher Jane Elliott’s “A Class Divided” experiment to viscerally teach her third-grade class about racism.
The one that haunts me most and has since I first learned of it decades ago is the disturbing Milgram experiment at Yale, created to try to understand the psychology of genocide, like those who engaged in it during the Holocaust.
Participants were given the power, so they believed, to deliver electric shocks to other participants in the study, whom they didn’t realize were actually actors. Overwhelmingly most of them obeyed the “authority” of the study’s instructors to continue delivering progressively stronger electric shocks, even in some cases to the point where the study’s true subjects, the ones with their finger on the electricity button, watched the actors receiving the electric shock writhing in ever greater agony, and even in some cases seeming to die from the shock delivered by the participant.
Imagine that. Some regular Joe like me and you, who probably would have sworn they would never engage in that kind of cruelty or objectification of human beings, would never follow orders to harm others, learned how easily they would.
Imagine living with that knowledge for the rest of your life, even if you found out later that it had been staged. Imagine having to know forever what you are truly capable of, and how easily. I imagine the legacy of those people’s participation in that experiment haunted them forever. At least I hope it did, or else it might truly undermine my belief in our prevailing decency.
Our evil villains are what we most fear in ourselves
This is how you keep even your most evil villains faceted and real: Hit on that desperately uncomfortable and scary shadow side of us that we all have, what psychology calls the disowned self.
The horror of Hannibal Lecter isn’t that he’s an insane bad guy who likes to chomp on human flesh, but that something about that is fascinating to us. Something about him and his perversely genteel tastes, his untroubled mien at the horrific suffering he inflicts, commands our attention—and it’s not just because we want to see his smackdown. He represents the evil that on some level I think we all know lurks within us, if we are not mindful of feeding the right wolf.
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Explore for your antagonist the circumstances and beliefs and poisonous social messaging that might have led them to unconscionable acts. And if you really want to haunt your readers, make them familiar and relatable, circumstances we ourselves might recognize ourselves in, like Jack Torrance hunting down his family under the influence of evil forces in The Shining, Khan ready to destroy an entire planet to keep his people safe, Magneto fighting for the survival of his marginalized and demonized fellow mutants, Loki’s furious hurt at being repeatedly overlooked and cast aside. We are all both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
This is how you keep even your most evil villains faceted and real: Hit on that desperately uncomfortable and scary shadow side of us that we all have, what Jung called the disowned self.
I have a friend who used to say, “The actions of a drunk person are the thoughts of a sober one.” I think of villains like that—their actions represent the secret, shameful, disowned thoughts every one of us may have had: Fear and contempt and even hatred of the “other.” Destruction of our enemies. Murderous rage, no matter that we’d never act on it.
Human nature is wonderfully, painfully, terrifyingly vulnerable and responsive to its surroundings and circumstances and the input it receives.
Our heroes are the ones who hold on to their own Jekyll and try to help others do that too. It’s why in so many stories, after Good has battled Evil and the bad guy is finally about to die, the hero instead offers him a hand off the ledge. “I have a Hyde too and you can choose not to let him lead you,” the gesture says.
Too often the villain chooses to reject that hand up and out of the darkness. But what makes a hero a hero is that he will always keep trying to offer it.
This topic has been consuming a lot of my thoughts lately, friends. Do you write superbad villains in your stories? What challenges do you find in doing so? How do you make them faceted and real and relatable even as they may engage in horrific behavior? And does that relate at all to your personal relationships, even amid what may feel like some real-life experiment of exactly how much people are willing to abandon their core values with the right stimulus?
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12 Comments. Leave new
An oh so fascinating post. I just hope I can do it justice with my response.
I had a not-so-great childhood so that alone would be sufficient for me to draw upon, but even as an adult I’ve had traumatic experiences. I don’t know if it was nature or nurture, but I tend to see subtle, almost indiscernible patterns in people’s non verbal behavior that are recorded in my subconscious. Only later do they become vivid behavioral or personality plot points in my mind as I suddenly see the pattern stretching into the past. It’s useful for writing, but otherwise I wish I didn’t have it.
I write fantasy so there’s magic involved, but I don’t write sword & sorcery or epic fantasy. It’s more of a women’s fiction historical fantasy. The villains I’ve written have had varying degrees of depth, but, in general, I often lean on selfishness, the certainty they’re right and acting for the greater good, and a businesslike approach to dealing with who lives and who dies.
Think of the insurance company that denies a lifesaving procedure, for instance.
To be more specific, and to touch on the personal aspect, I struggle with trust, a theme that runs through my Kovenlore Chronicles series. This is an issue for both the protagonist and antagonist, but where the protagonist makes hesitant efforts to improve, the antagonist dismisses others as not worthy of their trust. Meanwhile, the protagonist continually struggles with the temptation of evil “for the greater good.”
There’s also a redemption arc for a different character that begins late in the second book, which I’m so thankful I ended up including because it becomes a third spoke in the examination of good and evil.
It’s as if, upon the great divide of good and evil, characters balance, slip away on the evil side, struggle to stay on the good side, claw their way to the good side from the evil, and so on.
Interesting insights, Christina. This would make for relatable (even if uncomfortably so) villains: “selfishness, the certainty they’re right and acting for the greater good, and a businesslike approach to dealing with who lives and who dies.” And it hits a chord in me in real-world events, actually–for instance, as you say in the insurance industry. I think a lot of the “evil” in our world stems from these characteristics. I agree with you that heroes are far more interesting if we see their shadow side as well. Just as bravery isn’t the absence of fear but the decision not to let it hold you back, I think that “good” isn’t the absence of evil, but rather the choice not to give in to those baser impulses that are part of the human psyche, as much as are the loftier ones. I like that you keep your “good” and “evil” characters on a pendulum swing. I think that makes for meaty, intriguing characters, high stakes, and strong conflict. And oh, sadly, much relatability. Thanks for the food for thought!
Very helpful. I’m working on my villain now and would like him to be redeemed at the end of the novel. Hopefully this means you’re making progress on your next book Intuitive Character. Looking forward to it. I’m a setting-and-plot-first kind of writer. Character is my weak point. I need all the help I can get! Thanks!
I’m a redemption-arc writer too, Jan. I’m always hoping for it…in life as much as in fiction… 😉 But I think it also engages readers more deeply if we’re rooting for that possibility, the hope that even the worst of us may find our better angels.
Yes, as you can see the character theories are much on my mind, and I’m still working on the book. It won’t be out this year–I have a full slate of teaching/speaking already, on top of editing work–but I’m loosely aiming for next year. Thanks for your interest in it! And thanks for the comment.
Hi, Tiffany et al.,
Great post! I think the realization that good and evil are defined by a context that includes all we have experienced, felt, learned, etc. Plus, the fact and realization that we all struggle with shadow is what makes our characters rich and real. Just before I read your post (synchronicity?), I wrote this: “The history of our city [Birmingham, Alabama] bears witness to a terrible injustice in the name of one group claiming superiority to another, a pattern that has repeated itself throughout the story of our species. Of course, we also have the capacity to see ourselves in each other and the universe and work toward a world that reflects that. History helps us understand both choices.”
History is truth(s) in the form of stories . And stories help us understand –or even perceive–the choices. So what you are talking about here and what we, as writers … and readers, are doing is critical.
Hi, T.K.! There is no “et al.” I am both the “et” and the “al.” 😉
I love the excerpt you wrote on this same theme–it reflects where my thoughts often dwell, especially lately. I think a lot about what greatness we humans may be capable of–what kindness and community, and how we can accomplish extraordinary things when we act from those impulses. And yet history is marked so indelibly by its opposite–what you describe as one group claiming superiority over another. That’s hard-wired into us, I suppose, linked to some kind of survival instinct. Maybe the thing that makes humans so compelling (at least to us, but I guess as humans we’re biased!) is that we do hold both those impulses within us…and that we can make the choices you reference. We’re always the fraught and fragile characters in our stories: teetering precariously along the spectrum between these extremes, as liable to tip in one direction as the other depending on our environment and stimuli.
I love this too: “History is truth in the form of stories.” Yes. I’ve been finding some comfort in reading history lately, reminding myself that these struggles are not new, and that as dark as things may sometimes seem, eventually the cycle shifts. (And shifts back again…but I’m putting my hopes in the upswing right now.) Thanks for this thoughtful comment. And the project you’re working on sounds very interesting.
This landed in my mailbox at the best time: I’m working nonstop on The Count, the spinoff to Spotless. TC happens to reintroduce the “final boss” in the Spotless series, both a full-time supervillain and a ridiculously lovable guy devoted to his grandma, his cats, and his little brother.
As a general rule, I love the traditional villain with “good” reasons that poses a trolley problem to the reader, or the Hannibal Lecter and Pinhead types, villains that messes with your unspoken fears & fantasies, and will leave some serious psychological damage whether the protag triumphs or not.
In The Count, though, it’s a little of both. Rather than a (somewhat) morally comfortable case of “us against the world/I have my own complicated reasons to do evil”, or a full-fledged psychopath that becomes evil incarnate because of their inability to rein in their morbid pulsions, this character is a ‘nice’, self-aware, well-meaning psychopath: he knows what he is, but he believes that he lives by a utilitarianist philosophy, and that he puts his lack of inhibition and casual cruelty in the service of a form of greater good (“Josh came out of the factory missing some fundamental piece that makes the rest of us human.”)
That makes him fun to write and develop because of the unpredictability factor: his little brother, who’s the hero of this new series, is constantly tiptoeing on quicksand around that guy, thinking, ‘Yes, *technically* he would never harm me, but his definition of harm is completely different from mine, and he might solve my problems in ways that will multiply them tenfold, or harm people I care about without blinking.’
The cool thing is that having a nuanced villain will drive the rest of your plot and character development arcs naturally even if you have no idea what you’re doing, as I am. In this instance, my villain’s multifaceted behavior and motivations create unpredictability, but also a highly complicated relationship with his brother, our protagonist, who’s heavily under his influence and has a ton of issues to work out as a result. (“And to think I’m the one who spent months spilling to a therapist how I’m a lonely, damaged asshole, when we’ve had patient zero right here all along.”)
A good villain can provide a continual rollercoaster of love, influence, trust and mistrust, fear, disappointment, nostalgia, hope, etc. for our heroes. The complexity writes itself, which is great since I’m super lazy: my villain does the heavy lifting for me, giving levels of depth to what is otherwise a literary trash fire involving more cookie-cutter villains and accidentally coked-up chinchillas.
Ultimately, I think this might be my favorite type of villain: the one who can be at once your ally—which will mess with your moral code and, ultimately, your deeper identity—and your worst nightmare, especially after having thoroughly blurred the lines between the two in the first place. Not that I think of it, Lecter is exactly that, and even more so in Hannibal (the ending was such a mindf***.)
I am now done ranting incoherently past bedtime.
I love your analysis of this. You have created some of the most nuanced and complicated, intriguing villains I’ve read–fascinating for their charisma and appeal and recognizable humanity even as we may be gleefully horrified by their ends and their means, and I see the seeds of all of them in this comment.
I agree on trolley-type villains–Dexter always struck me as such a brilliant creation because he’s unarguably evil…yet he’s doing something any of us might regard as just, rightly or wrongly, in killing even worse killers than he is. Shades of roiling gray… It sounds like the Count is of that ilk, such a nice little sociopath. 🙂 Actually, from your description of the way the brother regards him, I’m wondering if you based this character on my dog Gavin?
The unpredictability factor you mention resonates with me right now, as I’ve been reading up on chaos theory (as one does)–villain-as-fractal. (Human as fractal I suppose is the actual truth.) I do think that can propel a story and character arcs–and sounds like one of my favorite ways to write: careening along the path alongside the characters, not sure what those unpredictable bastards are going to do, exhilarated by the ride and also terrified that you have no idea where they’re taking you. 😀 (A great recipe for drafting, but then EDITING AND REVISION, people, to instill structure and cohesion!)
Your stories are always a hilarious, singular, compelling delight of a ride, and I can’t wait to read this new one.
Hey Tiffany. I don’t care much for portraying evil. I have my dark side and my demons, but the primary experience I have of evil is books, movies, and our current leadership. My villains emerge in the first draft, usually as petty, often as narcissists, or suffering from some other malady you’d find in DSM 5. By the time the story has emerged, I find I need to make them a little more than cardboard cutouts. Save the Cat has served me well.
I love that you’ve invoked The Two Wolves in your post. It’s too bad we didn’t learn more from the indigenous people here in the New World.
Thanks for reminding me that in writing, only the surfaces of the pages are supposed to be two-dimensional.
I’ll be honest, Bob–I wasn’t exclusively thinking of fictional characters either in writing this post. I spend a lot of time lately trying to understand actions and beliefs that seem to be coming from the wrong wolf–even among people I love and whose values I thought I knew.
Like you, I don’t really write straight-up “evil” characters. I’m fascinated by the gray areas we all have within us, and I’m endlessly dedicated to a redemption arc.
And I suspect you need no reminder from me–or anyone–to make your stories fully fleshed and three-dimensional. 🙂 But thanks for the kind comment.
When I first saw the title, I thought, “I’m not writing any villains.” Ha! Then I remembered I most certainly do have one in my WIP! She does and says things that would horrify most mothers. I am becoming more aware of her backstory, and I dare say I can feel some empathy and compassion, but it doesn’t excuse her actions.
To your point about feeding the “bad” wolf, my understanding of that Native story is not that we focus on feeding one (good) over the other(bad) but that we need both of them to be who we are. It will wreak havoc if we don’t feed or acknowledge the “bad” one. It requires our attention, too, but not necessarily through outward action. We need to know it is there rather than try to ignore it. As you said, “We are both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” and how we navigate those forces matters.
The Milgram Experience….as horrifying as the study findings were, sadly, it had little impact, except perhaps on those folks pushing the button.
I worry my villain won’t be believable, and folks will have a hard time thinking someone could act that way. But after reading this piece, I am (unfortunately and fortunately) more inclined to think they can.
I continue to find it profoundly disquieting and chilling how much people are willing to abandon their core values for power, greed, status, stimulus, etc.
Thanks for this piece, Tiffany.
That’s a good distinction, Emily–we can feel (and create) empathy for villains, but I agree, it doesn’t negate or justify their actions. And yes, I understand your disheartening feelings about the kind of blithe cruelty and unconcern of some in pursuit of power, money, and their personal agenda.
I’m not sure of the intention of the Native American parable–I’ve understood it to mean that the wolf that triumphs is the one you feed, meaning we’re all capable of both good and evil, but we can choose which side of ourselves to nurture. But I agree that we have to recognize and acknowledge the “bad wolf,” and that we all contain both and must choose which wolf will lead us.
Your villain sounds intriguing…. Good luck with her, and with your story!