How to create a good villain?

As you know, the villain is not the embodiment of pure evil. Such villains are unrealistic. This is possible if only experiments were carried out on their consciousness and completely changed it. But even in this case, the villain remains a hero to himself. From his point of view, he is right. And something drives his actions. So what? Oddly enough, the goals of the villains are similar to the goals of the hero. The only difference is in the methods of achievement. 1. The villain serves a person whom he considers the embodiment of strength, correctness, justice, and he will follow this person, no matter how far he goes. Such villains, even if they are powerful, can be called average-caliber villains. There is someone even more powerful behind them. 2. Logical, love. In some stories, the villains fall in love with the heroes. Then they try to achieve them by any means necessary. Even if it is mean and can cause harm to both. Of course, the object of admiration can be someone else, but it must be someone close to the hero, otherwise it is not clear why he is a villain and who is the hero. 3. People often become villains out of a desire for revenge. But it also happens that the hero himself has not done anything wrong, but his distant ancestor on the side of his tenth cousin. Strange, isn’t it? But sometimes villains want to take revenge on them too. 4. We probably did something bad to get noticed. But the villains do it in a big way! They will blow up the tower, kill a lot of people and do other nasty things so that everyone knows and fears them. 5. Every person has a past. If something terrible happened in the villain’s past, he may be fired up with a desire to restore justice. But not to take revenge. 6. Villains, like ordinary people, are afraid of something. And in order, for example, to survive, they give salt to the heroes. 7. Who does not rejoice in wealth? Yes, of course, someone says that happiness does not come from money, but is wealth really bad? No. That’s what the villain thinks. And for his sake he is ready to do anything. 8. For example, there was some kind of prophecy. And there our character appears as a villain. So why argue with the stars? Or he was brought up in a clan that was involved in all this atrocity. Then he simply has such moral principles and he simply follows his own path. 9. People who are terminally ill are trying to arrange their last good days. Same with the villain. Perhaps he knows that he will soon die and is trying to have fun. 10. What if he and the hero are old rivals? For a leading place in the class? For a girl’s attention? They grew up and their struggle grew into something more. 11. Perhaps something tragic happened in the villain’s life. He lost his parents, a friend, almost died himself, his girlfriend left him. This left an imprint on his heart, he is sad and does not see the point in doing something good. He finds his satisfaction in sabotage. 12. Villains often want to take over the world. Is this an unworthy goal? Of course, world domination is good in all directions. Well, we sorted out the motives. Having chosen yours, you can start creating the image. What do I need to do? 1. Let his problems be similar to the hero’s problems. This is damn cool. Especially in the contrast of solution methods. 2. The villain has a good motivation that we understand. We understand that he is bad, but we sympathize with him. 3. The villain has many masks. For example, with a hero he can be a real beast, but he treats close people well, and they do not consider him a villain. 4. The villain must be charming. Handsome, smart, charming. He must have charisma and qualities that even a hero cannot achieve, but which we would all like to have. 5. A red-eyed villain with pale skin and a black flowing cape? It’s boring and too typical. Make him such that the hero doesn’t even recognize him as a villain at first. A sweet, courteous student girl with blue eyes and wheat-colored hair. She studies very hard, is quiet, comes from a decent family, and is dating an intelligent guy. In general, nothing indicates a villainous nature. Of course, this archetype of villains already exists, but you can change the details, for example, making him a friend of the hero. At least a long time ago. They can even rent one apartment. The hero would never think of a roommate. Even a relative of the hero may turn out to be the villain. In general, the villain shouldn’t be too generic. Of course, you can add something of your own. This is your character, you are free to do whatever you want with him. I hope my article helped you and you will create a super villain! Let me remind you that you will find other articles in my profile.