What do you think there needs to be, to make a great villain?

[Smithburg]

Say you were making a game or movie or book, how would you write the villain? What do you think a Villain needs to be considered great? What kinda of characteristics, motives, actions and so on would they need?

Me personally I think a villain needs to show themselves often in the show/game/series, I've never felt the ones where you see them once in the beginning and at the very end were good at all.

 

[bobmus]

I think motivation is key. We have to fully understand their motives and reasoning, or they have to be insanely evil and unreasonable to work. A shaky understanding of why someone might do something is what leads to the moment where you go 'But why would they do that?'.

 

[The Night Angel]

I think the most important is a sense of threat. We have to feel they really are capable of doing some real damage, even if ultimately we all know the hero will prevail.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Unpredictability. Their actions should be along with their character, but you shouldn't be able to predict what they're going to do.

 

[wooty]

A personal drive, an uncaring/cruel nature and a really, really good back-up plan each time.

Take Lelouch in Code Geass, the battle aint over until your opponent gets cocky, then confused, then mindfucked, then humiliated.

 

[3quency]

Motivations that actually make a lot of sense, if not necessarily sympathetic.
A good villain should have you going "actually, I can kinda see how he got that conclusion."

Furthering that idea, convincing fallibility.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

The villain needs to be written by Greg Wiesman, and the villain will be an almost unstoppable Magnificent Bastard Chessmaster.

Don't believe me? Check out David Xanatos and Nerissa from Gargoyles and W.I.T.C.H. respectively, two of the best villains ever written.

 

[Professor Putricide]

A top hat, a monocle, and a curly, long mustache. Very important to any villain.

 

[Worgen]

Not having the damn plot device for almost all the events of the game or movie or whatever. I'm so sick of villans who can orchestrate an election 1500 years in the future but somehow forget to do good death traps or account for a plucky group of do gooders.

Captia: Mad science
Awesome.

 

[ReservoirAngel]

A big part of what I think makes a great villain is that they need to be the antithesis of the hero, but still similar in enough ways to make them have a strange kind of bond.

For example:

The Joker and Batman: Batman is stern and serious, the Joker is giggling and hysterically happy. They're both incredibly intelligent but they use it for totally different methods.

Similar thing is present in the BBC series Sherlock where Sherlock Holmes and Jim Moriarty are both full-on geniuses but the way they use that genius is diametrically opposed. Plus Sherlock is all business and no bullshit while Moriarty is a wise-cracking, somewhat unbalanced jerk-arse.

Plus being played by an awesome actor is definitely a plus.

 

[BlackStar42]

On some level, you have to be able to empathise with them and/or understand why they do what they do. Having a villain who has read and understands the Evil Overlord List helps too, because then you aren't yelling "Just SHOOT him, you stupid bastard!" at the screen.

 

[Voltano]

Say you were making a game or movie or book, how would you write the villain? What do you think a Villain needs to be considered great? What kinda of characteristics, motives, actions and so on would they need?

For me the villain needs to be as defined like a hero in the game/story. The villain should be on their own "hero's journey" through the game, with their own allies, goals, failures, and lessons to learn similar to the hero. The exception is the villain should serve as an antagonist and may use methods that are morally wrong to reach those goals, when compared to the hero.

For example, say a hero comes to a town that is having trouble with bandits. One obvious quest that would fit this hero's archetype is to get into the bandit lair and defeat them. If you take that same scenario and gave it to a villain, that character might make a deal with the bandits that they will stop raiding the village in exchange of having all the women given to them as slaves from that village. Both reach for the same goal, but both have different methods (and morally questionable) methods to reach that goal.

 

[theparsonski]

They should be unpredictable, have realistic motivations, not be completely inherently evil, and be genuinely threatening. Often, when you turn a story around and look at it from a villain's perspective they actually don't seem evil at all, just someone with their own motivations and agendas, often more moral than the protagonist. Take the Bourne films, for example. The villains (Treadstone, Blackbriar etc.) are trying to eliminate a lethal weapon that they believe has gone rogue and is a danger to civilians and the CIA alike. Sure, they aren't perfect, but people can forget that Bourne himself was a professional killer.

Another example is Sauron. Why shouldn't he have the One Ring? He made it, for heavens sake! I think Sauron was perfectly justified in what he did, especially considering the amount of collateral damage the 'good guys' did to his lands and armies. It's just because he's black.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The villain has to be someone you can respect, and have qualities you'd admire in a better person.

 

[Scarim Coral]

First thing first, a kick ass theme tune!

Other than that, there are different ways to make a villain interest wheather it's his/ her charismatic, motivation or just being badass about it.

 

[370999]

Depends. Sometimes being deeply sympathetic makes a villain great as you can feel yourself feeling sorry with him. Sometimes it it being utterly terrifying that makes him stand out. Sometimes it making an argument that makes you question who's right.

Heroes come in a variety of shapes and so should villains. Stories, the best ones, tell something that makes me care. villains should help facilitate that.

So depends. Checklists don't make art great.

 

[VeryOddGamer]

A good villain should have a good motivation, one that you might even picture yourself having. But a good villain should also be someone that you fear, someone who might actually defeat the hero. Or the villain could just be an Eldritch Abomination that has motives that the human mind cannot understand. I prefer the more human one.

 

[Cpu46]

I enjoy villains that could actually be viewed as heroes if through a different point of view. Make their motivations actually make sense and, if possible, have the audience actually sympathize with them. What really makes me angry is when we get all the heart wrenching information after the villain is already dead. I don't want to feel guilty and bad only after the fact. I want to feel bad and dread it the moment I see it coming. I want to feel sad the moment that the hero draws his weapon to kill the villain. I want to hate the hero for killing the villain but at the same time realize that it was necessary. And for the love of god don't spell it out for me by having the hero say "If only we were under different circumstances...." or some other drivel like that.

My dream is to make a story that comes in 2 parallel books/movie/game/ect that cover the same events but each has their own 'hero' with the hero of the other book being the villain. The plot will be complex, both sides will be justified, characters will switch sides, temporary alliances will be made, and in the end at least one of the 2 will die. I don't know when I will do this or what quality it will be, but I will do it.

That being said a character like the Joker is always nice every once and a while. But really he isn't a character, more of an intrinsic force everyone has to deal with.