Top Ten Tuesday: Why I Love Your Villain

This week’s topic is all about villains. Lucky me, I finally have an excuse to use all of the Ramsay Bolton memes!  He’s not the best example of what I'm talking about in this post, but I have memes!

Let’s be honest, sometimes the bad guys are more interesting than the good guys. Villains do whatever they want. That’s what makes them so much fun to read about. Here are 10 things that will make me love a villain.

Why I Love Your Villain

1. There’s potential for a redemption arc. I’m trash for redemption arcs. They’re one of my favorite plotlines to read (or watch). I will never get bored with them. The most interesting characters are the morally gray ones who make questionable choices. I like not being able to trust a character. I love when a bad guy learns that being evil is overrated and tries to be good.

2. They have a sense of humor. This is true with any character, not just bad guys. If a character can make me laugh, they’ll instantly become one of my favorites.

3. Sometimes they’re not selfish. One of the trademarks of a villain is selfishness, right? They have to be selfish if they’re going to hurt people to get ahead in life. But . . . what if sometimes they’re not selfish? What if they love their family and provide excellent health insurance for their minions? Being evil all the time is tedious. I want to see villains who care about someone besides themselves.

4. Sometimes they’re not emotionless. Another trademark of the villain is coldness. They murder a dozen people and then happily go about their day. Real-life serial killers are like this, but it’s kind of boring to read about. I’d rather read about a villain who second-guesses their decision to kill everyone. Maybe a villain should occasionally feel bad about their life choices.   

5. The hero is a little evil. Admit it: Sometimes heroes are massive jerks. (I’m looking at you, Ron Weasley.) If the hero is sometimes an insufferable asshat, it’ll be easier to understand the villain’s motives. Nobody likes an asshat.

6. They have a unique backstory. Bad guys need reasons for being bad guys. The two most common excuses for terrible fictional behavior are mental illnesses and abusive childhoods. This makes sense. If you read about real serial killers, most of them had horrific childhoods and untreated mental problems. But, villains who are ill and abused are overdone in fiction. I want to read about villains with unique backstories.

7. Their actions have consequences. I don’t mean “Hero murders them.” That’s fine, but becoming a supervillain doesn’t happen overnight. If you do evil stuff, there’s going to be pushback. Protesters will wave signs. Your family might betray you. You could lose all of your Twitter followers (except the bots. You’re stuck with those forever). You might be captured by a bigger, badder, smarter villain.

8. They used to be a good guy. Villains don’t see themselves as villains. They think they’re heroes. What if they set out to do something good, but their life spun out of control? They’re in too deep now. They don’t know how to pull themselves out of the mess they made. They keep sinking deeper and deeper . . . .

9. They caved to peer pressure (or had other relatable problems). We’ve all done things that we’re not proud of. My favorite villains are the ones who have extreme versions of common problems. For example, peer pressure. Most of us know what it’s like to stop resisting and go along with the crowd. Fighting peer pressure is exhausting. (I’m thinking about those knitted ponchos at my high school. You couldn’t be “cool” if you didn’t own a poncho. The ponchos were ugly and didn’t keep you warm! They served no purpose! Maybe the villain is secretly wishing they weren’t wearing a “cool” poncho right now.)

10. They don’t monologue. Don’t do this, authors. Just don’t. Please don’t make your villain give a long monologue right before the hero kills them. It’s cliché and annoying. Either give your villain a point-of-view, or have their actions show their motives.

Books with excellent villains

Who are your favorite fictional bad guys?