Developing Believable Villains

Happy Friday, and May the 4th be with you! I apologize for my absence over the last week or so; I’ve been handling some projects which are taking a lot more time than I had originally estimated. Then today I was watching the Star Wars marathon on TBS. (I have officially fallen in love with John Boyega! Too bad they stopped with The Force Awakens; no spoilers for The Last Jedi, please.) Watching these movies have gotten me thinking about a part of writing which can be incredibly difficult, especially for genre writers: developing believable villains.

In the Star Wars movies I’ve watched, I’ve seen examples of believable villains, unbelievable villains, and some that are in between. Darth Vader: believable. Kylo Ren: in between. Jabba: eh. The Emperor: unbelievable. With plot-driven movies like Star Wars and their literary parallels, it’s easier to get away with characters like The Emperor; they’re over the top and relentlessly evil but at least they drive the plot forward.

Still, relying on such villains can grow tiresome. They have virtually no depth and are evil just to be evil. No emotional connection forms between the reader (or viewer in the case of movies) and this antagonist. They only cheer for their deaths or other forms of downfall because it means the hero/heroine is triumphant.

So, what does make a well-developed villain?

Well, they’re like any other character. They need a unique, complex personality and a strong backstory; there needs to be a reason they do what they do. Readers must be able to understand the rationale behind their actions while not necessarily agreeing with them. At the least, we should see some sort of emotional arc to their part of the story, something that shows they aren’t just a villainous caricature.

Let’s switch gears from a fanatic film franchise to a fanatic literary franchise: Harry Potter. The main villain in the Harry Potter books is, obviously, Lord Voldemort. For the first several books, Voldemort seems to be quite the unbelievable antagonist. Is he villainous and someone whom our hero should fight? Of course! In that way, he is believable. However, in the beginning we know little about him except for the fact that he’s done horrendous things and he’s out to kill Harry.

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, though, Voldemort leaps from a flat character to well-rounded as we learn more about his background. His hatred of Muggles starts to make sense as does his heartlessness; we even find several parallels between Voldemort and Harry, a possible psychological reason for why Voldemort decided to go after Harry instead of Neville when they were babies. Readers certainly do not feel that his actions are justified, and thus he remains believable as an evil character. Still, we understand him better, which makes him more believable as a character overall.

We see similar development in the Star Wars prequels with the creation of Darth Vader from Anakin Skywalker. We see him go from an innocent little boy to a promising young Jedi and, finally, the broken, sad, and angry Darth Vader we know and hate in the original Star Wars trilogy. Even before the prequels in the original trilogy itself we see complex emotional development for Darth Vader, a glimmer of humanity which makes us want him to come back to the Light Side.

When push comes to shove, humans are complex emotional beings. We constantly fight with the dark side within us–and sometimes the light side if we’re already immersed in our darker tendencies. As readers and viewers, we want to see that struggle reflected in fiction. That’s why a believable villain can be a genre writer’s greatest secret weapon as well as their biggest challenge. Make readers feel emotional attachment to your villains while still rooting against them and you’re golden. Neglect to develop your villains and you can still have a successful story; you will just lose some potential depth and genius material.

What do you think? Do you prefer villains that are believable as people? Or do you prefer for them to just be a physical embodiment of the evil the heroes are fighting? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!