01-22-2017, 10:14 AM
Ooo, villains! Well, in my opinion, a really dastardly, 100% terrible villain never, ever does anything outside of their own self-interest. Given a choice between helping out or taking advantage of everyone else being weak, they will almost always choose the latter. If a giant meteor is hurtling towards their home planet, they might help to destroy it simply because their plans haven't come to full fruition. They're not through yet, and a stupid hunk of rock won't steal the chance to wreak devastation from them. A villain..... probably should either terrify or anger the reader, and not seem completely justified in all they do.
But showing character development is tricky. You can give your villain a reason behind their actions that makes the reader feel sorry for them, sure, but you can't let it justify any of what they're doing. Like, you've got Mr Freeze from the Batman Animated Series and the tradgedy of his wife being lost to him and all, but at the same time, he's hurting people, so that's unacceptable to the protagonist and the law. He never stops being a villain..... he doesn't help the hero, he's only pursuing his own agenda. I suppose a good way to do this in writing would be to have the villain do horrible, awful things beforehand, and only attempt to justify it with a revealed history or flashback when they are caught/challenged. Another example of this would the Maleficent.
Then, there are characters like Jim Moriarty from BBC's Sherlock. There is nothing sympathetic about what he is doing, and he never changes much at all in his bad guy status. Unlike Freeze and Maleficent, we don't feel sorry for him and are never given any reason to. His character growth...and what makes him so interesting..... is a marked evolution from an unknown, invisible threat to one that is very much real. When he appears, he is larger than life, dominating the scene and wreaking havoc on the title characters life. And what is his cause? Boredom.
Ahahaaa, sooo, bottom line is, a villain's gotta do bad things and be selfish about it. Doesn't matter if they treat it like a game, or a vendetta, or a justified psychological reaction... they are doing something monstrous. If they do good, it's gotta be either a trick or necessary to further their selfish plot.
I'd say that you're doing marvelously with Alex, the deception and violence is great. If you want to make the reader more sympathetic towards her and still keep her demonic, I think you should keep the reasons for her actions from being a selfless act, but something for her own gain.
But showing character development is tricky. You can give your villain a reason behind their actions that makes the reader feel sorry for them, sure, but you can't let it justify any of what they're doing. Like, you've got Mr Freeze from the Batman Animated Series and the tradgedy of his wife being lost to him and all, but at the same time, he's hurting people, so that's unacceptable to the protagonist and the law. He never stops being a villain..... he doesn't help the hero, he's only pursuing his own agenda. I suppose a good way to do this in writing would be to have the villain do horrible, awful things beforehand, and only attempt to justify it with a revealed history or flashback when they are caught/challenged. Another example of this would the Maleficent.
Then, there are characters like Jim Moriarty from BBC's Sherlock. There is nothing sympathetic about what he is doing, and he never changes much at all in his bad guy status. Unlike Freeze and Maleficent, we don't feel sorry for him and are never given any reason to. His character growth...and what makes him so interesting..... is a marked evolution from an unknown, invisible threat to one that is very much real. When he appears, he is larger than life, dominating the scene and wreaking havoc on the title characters life. And what is his cause? Boredom.
Ahahaaa, sooo, bottom line is, a villain's gotta do bad things and be selfish about it. Doesn't matter if they treat it like a game, or a vendetta, or a justified psychological reaction... they are doing something monstrous. If they do good, it's gotta be either a trick or necessary to further their selfish plot.
I'd say that you're doing marvelously with Alex, the deception and violence is great. If you want to make the reader more sympathetic towards her and still keep her demonic, I think you should keep the reasons for her actions from being a selfless act, but something for her own gain.
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Gamzee Makara Wrote:S’aight. After all, dogs have a tendency to motherfuckin’ bite.