Villainy!

Good villains are highly underrated. This is my firm belief. Anyone can spot a good hero, it takes nearly no effort at all to form a good protagonist. It’s the antagonists that are hard; making a good villain takes some mad skills.

Villains are not something I really thought much about until I started writing. Even after I started at LP I didn’t pay much attention to them until my second year. You know how when you make a new friend and spend a lot of time with them some of their little quirks tend to rub off on you? Well this is one of those quirks that rubbed off on me. My friend Brelyn is a big fan of villains. She probably likes them more than most protagonists and after spending some time with her… I almost feel the same way… almost. It’s true; the villain can really make or break a story.

There are many different types of villains, you know. There are the sympathetic type; the ones with a good reason to be evil, the crazy type; those who are absolutely mad and loving it, the pure evil type; the ones who are evil because… well they’re just evil, and all sorts of others. A truly good villain can sort of balance out several types of evil in one person.

The best villains are the ones we love to hate. They’re smart, cunning, manipulative and will stop at nothing to get what they want. These are the kids who were bullied on the play ground that grow up to invent the freeze-ray. Personally, I like the subtle villains, the ones with high charisma and elegant manners, that don’t necessarily scream ‘I’m a villain!’ These are the villains who are simply board and wanted to screw with people for fun, the ones that simply say ‘Because I’m evil’ when asked ‘Why are you doing this?’ These are the ones I love most.

Our cinematic culture is putting villains in a new light nowadays. The second class character who was once little more than a plot device to show off an awesome main character is now becoming the protagonist himself. Take movies like Despicable Me or Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog. These movies have taken the character who would normally be the antagonist and, without making them good guys, have turned them into sympathetic protagonists. It’s funny how those bent on evil and destruction are now the ones we want to care about most. The so-called ‘misunderstood.’

So, the next time you’re watching a movie or reading a book, pay close attention to the villain of the story. He’s more just a black cloak and curly mustache.