villains

[MLE]

I missed this post, so thought I'd restart it.
What makes you love to hate a bad guy? Does a weak antagonist or none at all hurt a book? How about examples of well done / badly done villains?

Do you like them real or fictional?

[Margaret]

My favorite "villains" aren't really pure villains. I love antagonists who are just as sympathetic in their own way as the protagonists, but who are pitted against the protagonists because of circumstance, misunderstanding, or the way the flaws of both characters grate against each other. I really don't enjoy reading about villains who are wholly evil or who hurt people simply because they relish hurting people and for no other reason. I find it unpleasant, and I don't think such characters are particularly realistic: the "villains" we encounter in real life have their reasons (twisted though they may be) for acting in ways that hurt people. So when a character seems utterly bad through-and-through, I just feel like the author isn't creating the level of depth I like in the novels I read.

[Eyza]

Margaret:I totally agree with you!* I have a "villain" who plays an important part in my Great Medieval SMy favorite "villains" aren't really pure villains. I love antagonists who are just as sympathetic in their own way as the protagonists, but who are pitted against the protagonists because of circumstance, misunderstanding, or the way the flaws of both characters grate against each other. I really don't enjoy reading about villains who are wholly evil or who hurt people simply because they relish hurting people and for no other reason. I find it unpleasant, and I don't think such characters are particularly realistic: the "villains" we encounter in real life have their reasons (twisted though they may be) for acting in ways that hurt people. So when a character seems utterly bad through-and-through, I just feel like the author isn't creating the level of depth I like in the novels I read.

[Eyza]

Margaret:I totally agree with you!* I have a "villain" who plays an important part in my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece, who is more of an "antihero" than anything else.* He and the hero have been friends "forever", but they have different personalities and competing interests, and one of the competing interests in the heroine.* And the "villain" (sort of) redeems himself in the end.* I did this because I absolutely hate "cartoon villains.* He's more of an "antihero" than anything else.Anne G

[tsjmom]

I love Catherine de Medici as a villain =P She was intelligent, ruthless, scheming, dark, wicked, and under rated. MWAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

[Margaret]

Oh, yes - Catherine de Medici is a great example of a villain who exercises power and schemes in a way that we all sometimes wish we were clever enough and ruthless enough to get away with ourselves, if we weren't such truly nice people.

[Melisende]

A while ago I read a book called "Villains by Necessity" - all the leading characters were villains - and thoroughly likeable ones at that!

[JaneConsumer]

The best bad guy I've read about lately is the fictional Jacob Cullen in As Meat Loves Salt. Thinking about his story still moves me. I want to strangle and comfort him, scream at him (don't you see what you're doing?!), love him - all at the same time.

"Bad" isn't really the right word to describe him. Sad, wretched.

[Leyland]

Another reason to love a villian though is depending on the level of dastardly deeds done, we secretly wish we could just let go sometimes and do the same. However, punishment in the form of consequences are generally the other side of the villain coin and perhaps it's better to experience them vicariously through a character in a novel.

Do you think a villain should always suffer consequences or should he or she get away scot free? Clearly a fictional one is easier to let off the hook than a real one.

I'd have to truly hate a really violent villian taking true and unrepentant pleasure in hurting any living creature. Too large a role in a novel for one such as that would stop me reading any further.

[Margaret]

I'd have to truly hate a really violent villian taking true and unrepentant pleasure in hurting any living creature.

I think that's a key to why Jacob in As Meat Loves Salt kept my sympathy even while he was hurting people right and left. He was such an impaired person that he didn't fully understand that he was hurting people. But he did have the capacity to learn (slowly) and come to understand why his behavior was wrong. I'm not sure he counts as a "villain," though, because he was really the protagonist of the novel.

How would you define a "villain"? It's easy with a classic melodrama, because there is the "hero" or "heroine" who is kind and good, who we root for, and there is the mean and ruthless character who tries to prevent the hero and heroine from achieving their goals and being happy. Dudley Do-Right and Snidely Whiplash. But novels that are more complex and true-to-life just don't fit that pattern.

[LoveHistory]

I like villains who are intelligent/funny. None of those one-dimensional, idiot, evil overlord types for me. I also like to get a sense of why a villain is the way he/she is.

[michellemoran]

I could easily identify what I like about fictional villains, but historical "villains" (which I assume to mean murderers) are much more difficult to read about/write because few people probably considers themselves a villain. Stalin, for example, probbaly thought of himself as quite the stand-up guy. Clearly, he knew he was a murderer, but while that word has terrible connotations for most of us, I'd be willing to bet that in his mind, there were varying degrees of murderers defined (and sometimes excused) by motivation/position in society.

[LoveHistory]

I could easily identify what I like about fictional villains, but historical "villains" (which I assume to mean murderers) are much more difficult to read about/write because few people probably considers themselves a villain. Stalin, for example, probbaly thought of himself as quite the stand-up guy. Clearly, he knew he was a murderer, but while that word has terrible connotations for most of us, I'd be willing to bet that in his mind, there were varying degrees of murderers defined (and sometimes excused) by motivation/position in society.

Isn't he the guy who said that one death is a tragedy but a million deaths is a statistic?

[michellemoran]

Yes! And the one death he was talking about was probably his own. :/

[Spitfire]

I would have to say that I love to hate Prince John in Geillis's Roselynd Chronicle series. Or how about PG's Beatrice Lacey...although she is probably idenified as the protagonist, she can also be grouped as a villian as well as she is so corrupt and evil. Thus I would nominate her as another villian that you love to hate!

[LCW]

My favorite villains of all time are Maegwllyn (sp?) and Sir Nicholas from Nectar From A Stone. Maegwllyn was just creepily evil while Nicholas was deviously insane! They were just flat out bad but also had touching sides to them and they really believed they were right. They were just absolutely brilliant!

[Eyza]

Margaret and all:

I kind of tend to prefer what might be called "antiheroes" to real "villains". For one thing, they're more complex and less likely to be one-dimensional. For another, you end up having some sympathy for them, although these characters end up doing bad things. Besides, they're kind of "driven" to do them, even if they want to do "right", which makes for a more "textured" story.
Anne G

[chuck]

"The Three Musketeers"...The lovely, charming and villainous Milady de Winter....strangling Constance with a Rosary...a very nasty deed....

[Misfit]

"The Three Musketeers"...The lovely, charming and villainous Milady de Winter....strangling Constance with a Rosary...a very nasty deed....

Milady was very very wicked indeed, as was her son in Twenty Years After.

[chuck]

Milady was very very wicked indeed, as was her son in Twenty Years After.

Hello Misfit....The great writer... Dumas....I need to read him again....Might be a good for the coming Winter to re-read AD again....Haven't read him since my College Lit. days....It was required reading and it opened the doors for my passion for HF....Cheers.....P.S...This is such a informative and friendly group of posters....Long live HF Online....

[Misfit]

Hello Misfit....The great writer... Dumas....I need to read him again....Might be a good for the coming Winter to re-read AD again....Haven't read him since my College Lit. days....It was required reading and it opened the doors for my passion for HF....Cheers.....P.S...This is such a informative and friendly group of posters....Long live HF Online....

chuck, agree about Dumas. I'm just getting ready to finish up his six volume series on the French Revolution. Really good stuff. Let me know if and when you're interested and I'll give you the book titles. Careful which version/publisher you buy though. There's some crappy translations out there right now.

[chuck]

Misfit....Thanks for the Heads Up....I still have my Dumas Penguin series....