Yuku free message boards

The basic fundamentals of writing fully developed villains: (this is an outline I used for a speech a couple years ago)

1. MOTIVATION
- A villain must have credible reason for doing what they're doing. The best villains usually have multiple driving factors. From their point of view, the villain should think that what they're doing is right or just. They don't see themselves as a villain.

Good Example: Magneto
1. A survivor of German concentration camps, Magneto is personally familiar with racism. As a boy he was helpless to save his family.
2. Now an old man, he views the "mutant registration act" as another form of persecution.
3. A mutant himself, Magneto now has the power to save his people.
4. In fact, he believes he's making the world safer not just for himself, but for his mutant enemies as well (the X-Men).

Bad Example: Freddy Krueger
1. He's insane. That justifies everything he does.
2. He gets revenge on the people that burned him alive by killing their children.
3. By part 4 he's killed off all the children of the people directly responsible for burning him. What does he do? He keeps killing! Why?
4. Because he's insane! Only one driving factor left. Not really... good.

2. CREDIBILITY
- Easy to get confused with Motivation, but different in one key aspect. While motivation explains what drives a villain, credibility asks, "Can they win? Should they win?" In other words, the villain has to be good about being a bad guy. It makes the villain more rounded as a character and forces the hero to be that much better. If you've ever sat through a movie, TV show, or read a book where you knew there was no way the villain would ever possibly win, it could be they were lacking in credibility.

Good Example: Agent Smith
1. Philosophy: He classifies the human race as a virus that spread itself across the planet, depleting natural resources.
2. He hates the Matrix as much as the heroes and wants to leave.
3. There are several "Agents" like Smith, but only Smith has the credibility to beat the hero.
4. How many times did he kill Neo? Like twice? Maybe two and a half? He's good.

Bad Example: Jason Voorhees
1. Philosophy: Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.
2. So completely devoid of any good traits, point of view, or humanity, that you know he's going to be brought down by the end of the movie. He's too evil to survive.
3. The director of Friday the 13th part 3 even told the actor that, "Jason has no motivation."
4. Kane Hodder, who played Jason 4 times, said he's just a killing machine that never stops.

3. HUMANITY
- Why give the villain likable traits?
- Tess Collins, a novelist, playwright and author of several articles on the art of writing says, "By having a good side and a bad side the adversary can more fully test the hero. He or she can strive more passionately to make the hero fail."
- "It is the truly evil character that needs to be rendered as a more complex character. An infusion of humanity changes them into a worthy opponent.

Good example: Godzilla (I was showing the class that even the biggest, most non-human villain of all can still have humanity)
1. Created by humans testing atomic bombs. He's a representation of human destructiveness. Casts him in the role of victim by default (sorta).
2. Has baby Godzilla! If you're watching the American version, has several baby Godzillas! Its main interest is to insure the birth of its offspring; something anyone can relate to.
3. Humans blow up its nest. Godzilla wants revenge on the people that murdered its children!
4. Without humanity Godzilla is reduced to little more than an oversized lizard. Without humanity he is an obstacle, not a character. And without humanity, the audience is robbed of any emotional impact his battles might have otherwise had. When a writer neglects the villain of their story, they are neglecting the audience.

Bad example: Terl (from Battlefield Earth- yeah, I went there)
1. He's just sooooooooooooo clever, isn't he?
2. He's just sooooooooooooo superior, isn't he?
3. He's just sooooooooooooo evil, isn't he?
4. He's just sooooooooooooo stupid, isn't he? Yeah. He won't be getting inducted into AMI's top 100 greatest villains of all time list any time soon.

Applied to Transformers there's two guys that really stand out to me. Strangely enough, they're both from TF: Cybertron.

Scourge and Starscream.

"Your way isn't better, just different."
- Scourge responding to Autobot criticisms of his method of rule.

"These humans are so self-centered. They're so sure I'm here to snuff them out, but I couldn't care less about them."
- Starscream and his views on humanity.