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

[Sougo]

I think what every villain needs is some intelligence. In short, a lot of villains come up with fairly decent schemes but then almost inevitably they make some sort of blunder or something that gives the hero a chance where there should be none.

So I want to see a villain who is genuinely smart, doesn't make aforementioned blunder and thinks ahead. The hero should only be allowed to overcome this challenge by actually outsmarting the villain. To put it simply, I want the side that is actually better (read: smarter) to win.

I think this really was the reason that Death note was such a hit for the first few episodes, before losing popularity with the rest. Yes I know death note is still very popular, but its only because the initial episodes were so good.

EDIT: Out of personal preference, I would grant bonus points to any villain who generally speaks less and usually doles out sarcastic statements.

 

[Wintermoot]

charisma
let mooks do the work and the villian kicking back drinking a eviltini
or if he does have to do the dirty work make him do it with style for example Char Aznable fights in custom mechs and without a pilot suit THAT is style.

or just plain insanity like the Joker

 

[DoPo]

I invite you to this very, VERY educational read on how to create a great villain by Rich Burlew, creator of Order of the Stick.

Seriously, read this article.

http://www.giantitp.com/articles/rTKEivnsYuZrh94H1Sn.html

OP, read this right now. Rich Burlew managed to make Xyklon who is an awesome villain. Well, not the best, but...well, he has the characteristics that I dislike, namely - he does evil for evil's sake. If you read the Start of Darkness, it pretty much shows that Xyklon has never been good, doesn't have a tragic past or anything like that. And yet, he manages to be entertaining and clever.

Oh but don't read Start of Darkness for Xyklon, do it for Redcloack. That character is very good for a villain.

Arcanum's Kerghan

What makes Kerghan so good? You can talk to him. And the dude makes sense as he describes why he wants to destroy all life. Fucking scary.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

Like any good character he needs to have human emotions, a motivation and be a 3 dimensional character in general... Or a moustache, either or...

 

[liquidsolid]

I think they have to be similar to the hero in some respect but have some point of divergence that doesn't allow common ground to be reached.


Its called a "Not so different" trope and its majorly at play in works like The Lord of the Rings in which Gollum is what Frodo could become if he succumb to the ring, Batman where Batman sees the world as having no order and needing to bring order to it and the Joker wishes to live in the chaotic world, and in The Godfather Part II where Michael (who could be considered a villain) is powerful and intense but lets his intensity eat away at him and turn him into a monster where as Vito (as a young man, who could be considered a hero) is powerful and intense and thus is transformed into the universally respected Don Vito Corleone.

 

[Nooners]

snip

Dude. You're forgetting General Tarquin, who is a FAR more interesting villain than Xykon. Xykon's fun, sure, but Tarquin is a much, much, more interesting, fun, savvy, and complex character.

 

[Fuhrlock]

A great villian needs to be memorable and enjoyable (which might sound obvious) but the means through which this can be achieved is by no means uniform. Sometimes it's becuase they have strong motivations/backstory, or it may be due to their personality or how they interact with their heroic counterparts. I find a villian can made good using any single one (or multiples) of these and these can be approached through any number of ways.

There no real shared traits I find myself drawn to in a villian just any trait that is well written/portrayed. Saying that making them clasy with an out of plac moustache, top hat and monocle is one of the easiest things to get right so any writers unsure of how to make a good villian character theres your safe starting point.

 

[irani_che]

this covers it for me
http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Types_of_Villains
the best ones being the Magnificent Bastards

http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Magnificent_Bastards

 

[bossfight1]

I'll tell ya what DOESN'T make a good villain; an organization that pointlessly kills civilians, and claiming they're in the right, see Cerberus in Mass Effect 3. Yes I know they were indoctrinated, but they still thought shooting people for no good reason would contribute to humanity's evolution.

 

[DoPo]

snip

Dude. You're forgetting General Tarquin, who is a FAR more interesting villain than Xykon. Xykon's fun, sure, but Tarquin is a much, much, more interesting, fun, savvy, and complex character.

I'm not forgetting him, Tarquin is genuinely interesting. Xyklon is absolutely not my kind of guy, and yet, Burlew manages to make him more than a cardboard cutout.

 

[Vykrel]

although it isnt entirely necessary, i believe that a villain can be great if the audience can sympathize with them in some way.

i enjoy watching the antagonist in a film or tv show and thinking to myself, "is he really that bad?". it makes me care more about what happens to them, rather than just hoping they die a violent death.

 

[Jaeke]

Why.

That's the answer to your question. The "why".

Sure some games show How or what makes villains evil, or just villains.
Very rarely do games every satisfy that which makes 50% of a good villain. Why is he/she evil/the villain, and then even more rarely do games execute that into a way that itself is good.

Take for example The Joker, the why is asked and is answered "Just because."
This is a very strange example because it works. It works because this villain justifies his "why" factor by fulfilling that role via the Protagonist (Batman). Batman is such a mortal foe to the Joker that the "why" factor isn't pertinent to The Joker because Batman's "why" factor is displayed and executed in a rather, I think, genius way. He realizes that everything he has done as a Hero, has only justified and furthered the villains cause, what was his symbol of righteous order, has only caused more averted chaos to oppose what he is. This is his curse and his warrant to only further this dilemma. This is The Joker's "why" and it is fulfilled through the protagonist himself.

It's a rather genius formula. The villain only makes up only half of the actual villain, the other half is yourself, and it only justifies the other's half.

If other games could mimic and make their own uses of this formula, we'd have A LOT more memorable games.

EDIT: Holy crap, I got ninja'd big time

You Escapists and your smarts...

 

[TheIronRuler]

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 Joker fucks up that argument completely, but I do partially agree with you.

 

[RJ 17]

My ideal villain is someone who isn't outwardly evil. For example, Senator Palpatine. He smiles and placates the good guys one moment but behind closed doors he is a mastermind/puppet master who is playing both sides of a war for his own personal gain.

Next, the villain should be shockingly brilliant and yet delightfully mad, such as Heath Ledger's Joker from The Dark Knight. I really liked when Alfred says "Some mean aren't looking for anything rational. They can't be bought, bullied, or negotiated with. Some men just like to watch the world burn." I really appreciate that in a villain, someone who's brilliant and undoubtedly evil, but it's evil without a true purpose. His plots are vast and deep, yet there's little to no motivation behind it: it's just evil for evil's sake.

Next, I have to say no super powers. I have a lot more respect for a villain that's essentially just "Average Joe #153 with an evil master plan" than one that's got super powers backing him up.

And lastly, despite all my use of the pronoun "he" in the first three factors, my ideal villain is actually a villainess. "Hell hath no fury..." etc etc.

 

[oZode]

Someone you do not expect as a villain is always a good one. After all when someone seems so right and just the last thing you expect for them to do is falsely frame you in revenge for something you did to them when younger.

 

[solemnwar]

I tend to make villains "the good guy in their own mind". A good deal of my so-called villains are merely the opposing faction in a war (i.e. different countries). No one is really the "evil" one, since each have valid arguments for why they're right and the other is wrong.

But I do occassionally have a "true" villain, and I try to make them as threatening as possible, while still making them human, with their own weaknesses and strengths and dreams and even love interests (and I find it so much fun to have the HERO kidnap the love interest to gain leverage XD).

Although I don't have many "true" heroes, mostly antihero type characters because fuck goody-two-shoes, man.


Captcha: "Tickle the ivories"
... sounds kinky.

 

[Agayek]

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.

A good antagonist (not necessarily villain) serves three primary purposes:

1) To act as an inverted mirror to the protagonist. Basically, showing a might-have-been look at the hero. This is why the Joker is such a fantastic antagonist. He's basically Batman, but instead of "I must fight crime", it's "I must laugh". Batman and the Joker are, at their core, essentially the same person, just centered on a different philosophy.

2) To drive the plot. At the most basic level, the Hero's Journey is about a single conflict, and everything throughout the story ties into that conflict. On top of that, the conflict is controlled by two actors, the pro- and antagonist. The standard template of the journey is that the hero is unable to control the conflict, and as such it must fall to the antagonist to drive it. They need to establish what's going on, when/how it happens, and the sequence of events necessary for their efforts to come to fruition. Xanatos from Gargoyles is the classic example of this, but there's no need for Xanatos Gambits every few minutes. They simply need to have a goal and be visibly driving towards it. Just by doing that, they drive the plot.

3) Symbolism. As mentioned above, the Hero's Journey is all about a single conflict. This conflict always has ideological roots. It could be as simple as "selfishness vs selflessness" to as complicated as "Christianity vs Hinduism" or anything in between. Both the pro- and antagonist represent ideals. A good antagonist represents an idea that is being portrayed as flawed or evil, but still makes you sympathize with it. The audience needs to be able to understand how they came to represent what they do, and can thus be brought to sympathize. The quintessential example of this is Andrew Ryan. He is the central antagonist for the first 2/3 of Bioshock, and wholly represents Objectivism, which the entire game continually harps on as being inherently flawed. Yet anyone who's played it can recognize the bit with the golf club as one of the most powerful moments in entertainment history.

These criteria are what makes good, memorable, and important villains. Everything else is secondary.

Edited for spelling/word choice errors

 

[thespyisdead]

it all depends on the context, and how the story is built up, but the main thing is the villain brings feelings of hatred towards him

a villain's aim can be obscured, but as the mass effect series demonstrated, the main villain must have first have a barrier of sorts that the hatred is aimed at, and once that barrier is gone, all you can do is hate the guts of the vilain

 

[The Harkinator]

Alduin was a terrible villain. Why? Because we were forced to believe he was the villain, and he was abscent most of the time. And because he had a ridiculous voice.

Letho was an awesome villain. Why? He had a reason that wasn't fucking retarded (herp derp I want to control the world), he wasn't evil per say and he was almost always around the corner. Plus, he was a fucking badass.

Very true, for me in recent memory, Alduin is the worst villain I have seen for a long time.

Reasons:
1) He hardly appears. We see him right at the start, once not far in then don't see him until the badly paced ending.
2) His plan has no complexity. Alduinss plan is so basic thats its just 'Bring back dragons so we can kill everyone because thats what I did before.'
3) There is nothing interesting about him. Alduin is a magic dragon, that makes him a bad guy. The worst reasonings of why the world nearly got taken over is because 'A magic dragon did it.' or 'A wizard did it'.
4) We never get to speak to him. Alduin does speak to us at one point where he just insults the player. Dovakhin never gets the chance to talk to Alduin so encounters amount to 'There you are! Lets fight now!'
5) The player is destined to beat him. No only is Alduin an awful villain, Dovakhin is an awful protagonist. Its their destiny to beat Alduin which means they are stuck with Alduin, while being the mythical Dragonborn overrides anything the player may achieve in game. Fame and hero status should be earned through deeds, not being born with it.

Conversely, Caesar is perhaps the best villain I've seen in a game for a long time. I know he doesnt have to be the bad guy but thats one of the good things.

Reasons:
1) You can talk to him to learn his motivations. Caesar approaches you with an offer to meet him, he also offers a pardon. This is a great chance to have an audience with a major character.
2) You can decide to join him. You should never fight the villain without having a good reason for it. Caesar gives you plenty of reasons to oppose him, but there are reasons and the choice to join him. This allows the player to make their own mind up if he is their sort of villain.
3) His influence is present, but he isn't always. In the Mojave the Legion is talked of often, townspeople tell you rumours they have heard and their opinions on Caesar and how he compares to other big powers in the region. The player gets information to become aware of the villain and will later see how he excercises his will to be able to judge him.
4) You can learn more about him by talking to people that have witnessed his actions. Raul the ghoul is a great example of this, having witnessed just what Caesar can do and by learning this, it elevates his motivations to a much more noble goal achieved with evil means. The player can get a more impartial opinion than NCR soldiers or Legion warriors. Speaking to Followers gives another indication of how Caesar became who he is and why he does what he does.
5) Caesar isn't the worst of the worst. Lanius is. The main villain in most of the endings isn't the most evil guy out there. The player can learn that he is the lesser of two evils as he keeps Lanius in check and can do things Lanuis cannot, such as keep a nation together and respect his foes.