Pinned
As a known villain-enthusiast, I figured I’d write up how I assess them as storytelling devices. Like, whether they’re enjoyable characters is up to taste, but whether they’re good writing requires critical assessment. This is a rather long post, so here is a summary:
Learning how to critique villains is a great way to identify skilled and passionate storytellers. They embody the ideas and decisions that the writer feels are incorrect. While some narrative devices are more subtle (local politics unfolding in the background, color or song cues, scene settings, etc.), villains are dramatic. That is a person designed to be wrong! They intentionally draw the audience’s focus for important steps of the story. When a writer stumbles on that, it reflects poorly on the entire work precisely because of that focus.
This post is going to get into the following key components of an effective villain:
- They highlight the wrong conclusion about a key issue in the story.
- They should be a symptom of either a larger issue in the narrative or the one they fixate on.
- They don't need to be evil, and, in many cases, that label is a hindrance.
- As the average age of the target audience and/or the length of the story increases, villains should be more frequently correct in their beliefs and choices.
- They evoke strong emotion appropriate to the genre.
- They don’t need to be antagonists, and antagonists don’t need to be villains.
- They raise the stakes: the world will become worse if they are left unchecked.
- Their strengths and weaknesses should be directly tied either to the central theme of the story or their opponent's character arc.
- Their ending is consistent with the theme of the story.
- If included, a villain redemption arc must have 4 components: (1) an external stimulus causing (2) a choice to deviate from their plan and (3) a corresponding shift in their worldview, and those result in (4) action that matches the strength of their new conviction.
- They should not be included in a story if any of the above causes distraction or discordance with the main plot line.
Of course, there’s spoilers to follow, so reader beware.
