Joker from DC and Loki from Marvel (Yahoo Image Search)
I’ve mentioned a few times that everyone loves a good villain. This isn’t an original thought and has been around longer than all of us have been alive. Yet, you don’t always see a lot from the villain’s perspective. They show up for the fights and to do evil, but you rarely see them in a casual setting like the heroes. A villain doesn’t usually get a romantic storyline, parties with friends, discussions about life, or anything that might make them human. This isn’t to say they have to be good in these scenes, but they don’t get to show the audience that they have a life outside of dealing with the heroes.
That being said, it’s still a risk to make your villain more human. You can lose something if the world is seen more through their eyes than the heroes. Take the upcoming movie ‘Maleficient’. This is one of the big baddies from Disney and she became even more infamous after Kingdom Hearts used her as the top baddie. I never thought much of her until that game, so I was curious about her getting a movie. Now I’m nervous because part of me doesn’t want to see her as a sympathetic character. Some villains we love more as pure villains and taking them out of that purity can lose people. If you start with chinks in their evil armor then it’s easier to go through their eyes. Still, this doesn’t happen often and you find more ‘pure evil/greedy/dark’ villains who remain distant from the reader.
I run into a lot of authors who are trying to redefine villains and antagonists. One of the common ways is to have half of the book through the eyes of the bad guy and show that they might not be evil. Basically, you have the hero and villain share the roles, so readers can decide for themselves who is the most noble. Great idea, but many times it still comes off as one-sided or the author’s own perception chooses a winner that half of the fans disagree with. This is why I’m more of a fan of keeping a villain in the antagonist role, but making them a ‘human’ character instead of a caricature. That being said, I do think there is always a place for the disgustingly evil ones.
So, what do people think of scenes that are done through the eyes of the villain? Does it hurt or help a story?
Legends of Windemere 
I guess I’m one of those redefining the villain… I would say almost half the book is from the perspective of the Drow, the rest of the book is divided up amongst the other Races… it’s heavy from the perceived perception of the perceived villain.
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It does bring up the question: Can the villain by the ‘protagonist’ or main character? I’ve been seeing that crop up a lot since I was a teenager. Comics tried it, but the characters were more dark anti-heroes like Venom.
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I think that may be why I kept clear of having a main character and went with an ensemble of characters. I had a friend who was drawn to a character (Cadfeal) even though he only has brief appearances. My friend said to me what drew him was how cold and ruthless the character was… it is funny because my intention was to use Cadfeal as a mirror for another character (Cadfrawd) that plays a bigger role, like Shakespeare did in “Hamlet” with Laertes, to shine light on the main character of Hamlet
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Ensemble casts can have more longevity too. That’s why I stick with them because the characters live and thrive off each other. An ending for one doesn’t mean an ending for the others.
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that’s a good thing… especially for me, I have the Shakespearian penchant for killing characters…
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I think it’s a brilliant idea to humanize the villain a bit. I don’t believe it will hurt the story. I find books where I get to know the villain a little more and get to see where he or she is coming from more interesting and fun to read.
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Me too. It brings more to the overall story too. You feel like two people are fighting instead of a person and a caricature.
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I always enjoy seeing scenes from a villain’s POV, finding out a little of what makes them tick. Been figuring out a couple such sequences, myself…one villain being a serial killer, and another being a centuries-old mage with a grudge against any technological advancement from a certain point on.
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For some reason I want to see a scene with that mage arguing with Siri over an iPhone. 😀
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…Oh my GOD, I need to write that at some point! Thanks for the idea!
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You’re welcome.
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I think seeing things from the villain’s point-of-view is quite interesting. In my opinion, why not, I think this allows you to dig much deeper into his/her character than you would be able to just by witnessing them through their deeds.
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I agree. It really helps the story as long as it’s done correctly.
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If a villain is really interesting, I love seeing a story from their POV. That being said, I really dislike when writers start going out of their way to humanize villains. The best example I can think of is Once Upon a Time (I may have ranted about this before, lol). The pattern on that show is that they introduce a really evil character (we’re talking mass murderers here), and then they start to show us flashbacks of their life, and how they were so mistreated as children, and how the world was unfair to them, blah blah blah sob story city. It’s gotten to the point where you just want to throw your hands in the air and shout “I get it! They all have tragic pasts! But that doesn’t excuse them from the evil things they’ve done!”
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I’m probably going to start in on that series this weekend. I can see it being done for a few characters, but all of the villains getting a tragic past seems extreme. I do understand the idea that people aren’t born evil and have a catalyst. There is a limit though.
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There is indeed a limit, and I feel OUAT does cross it a bit too frequently. That being said, I do love the show regardless 😀 If you do end up watching, have a blast!
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Thanks. I reserved a copy of season 1 at the library today.
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I thought about giving my antagonist daughters, to give my hero a sympathetic edge with her, but decided against it. She’s going to have to die in this book. The series moves on with the other of the two storylines. She’s evil and vile. I really don’t want to give readers any reason at all to question my heros’ objective with her…or to have any empathy for her.
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I have a villain like that. Though my others are designed to garner some empathy. I like it when my villains have fans too.
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If she didn’t have to be dispensable I would have given her a daughter…but I still may be able to do that in a next book for people who empathize with the plight of the villains. There is some empathy to be garnered there and I fear alienating an entire culture just by having them be bad guys in this story. Touchy.
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I must have missed the alienation of an entire culture possibility.
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I try to make the villain as like able as possible. Makes for an interesting character. The idea of a dual story is intreguing. Think I’ll try it in a short story first.
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Looking forward to seeing that. As for likeable villains, I think they give the audience more for their money. You get to be on the fence about who you want to win.
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What is really cool is to make a villain likeable and then the reader finds out he (or she) is totally insane.
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That is really cool. Hard to do too.
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We love villains because of their evil intent. I would prefer a book with the voice of a villain being portrayed in some parts, but not to add humanity in him but rather to emphasize his dark character.
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I have noticed that more villains stand in the middle instead of pure evil lately. Magneto is a good example because he’s a villain who believes he’s doing good. So there really isn’t an evil intent there.
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For me, I don’t mind having a story told from the viewpoint of the villain. It gives the reader a grittier tale. Has there ever been a villain who totally turns into being good and ends up aiding the hero?
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Happens a lot in comics and video games, especially role-playing games. Several times a villain will end up joining the heroes when a bigger baddie appears.
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That really is a tricky thing, I think.
I feel like I could say a lot about this, but I’m not entirely coherent enough yet for it to make sense. (I tried.)
I think a good (non-book) example of what you’re talking about here is Once Upon A Time. The ‘Evil Queen’ in that . . . whew, I wanted to punch her in the face through the TV screen. Then they did the backstory on her, and it was like, “NOOOOO! I don’t want to feel sorry for her!”
I guess there’s really no right or wrong thing. It’s all a matter of personal taste, in writing or reading.
I typically like to leave everything in a grey area when I’m writing, APART from the villains. Not saying they’re all inherently bad, only that they’re ‘bad’ to whatever characters the books center around.
I like to think that ‘good guys’ are often the ‘bad guys’ from the perspective of the ‘villain.’ I suppose that all depends on moral compasses. ha
I don’t know if this made sense at all. Sorry!
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The character I think of the most when it comes to unnecessary or overdone humanization is Darth Vader. He was a great villain in the original trilogy and redeemed himself at the end. Hints at the back story were good enough at that point. Then you get the prequels and you find out he was more of a temperamental child than an evolving villain. I think my favorite part was when Palpatine told him they could save Padme if they joined forced. Then he admitted there was no way to do that and Anakin still fought for him. All that temper and he doesn’t lash out at the Emperor for 3 whole movies? Then again, I might be remembering it wrong since it’s been years.
The rest made sense. A villain looks at a hero as their own antagonist.
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No, you’re definitely not remembering it wrong.
I actually wrote up something to post on here (haven’t done so yet) about Star Wars. Don’t really get into what you mentioned specifically, but make how I feel about 1-3 quite clear.
At the risk of getting into a massive rant about those three, I’ll try to keep it on track and say . . . You’re absolutely right.
He should’ve just left it how it was. (HE SHOULD’VE LEFT IT HOW IT WAS. >.<)
And it really is difficult to believe that Anakin's temper (tantrums) never blew up in the Emperor's face at any point. I guess then you could get into the question as to whether it was because he'd lost (killed) absolutely everything else in his life. I just really don't think that with all the arrogance Anakin had he would've been perfectly content to be the Emperor's lapdog (typed laptop*) for 20 years or so. It really makes absolutely no sense.
If those three movies had never been made, who could really tear Vader apart?
Such a shame . . .
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Not sure if it’s never should have been made or should have been more careful. I would have loved to see Anakin’s fall to Vader, but it felt rather forced. He did heinous things without much of a hint that he was that type of person.
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I don’t know if I really should’ve said that. I just get so unbelievably frustrated at so many different aspects of 1-3 that I complain about any and everything I possibly can.
Yeah, seeing that all happen would’ve been great . . . if it had been done better. It’s just so disappointing all around.
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Tends to always be about the delivery.
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Chiming in late on this because… well, life happened. I wonder if the two villains you name, Loki and the Joker, have more of a fan base because of the actors who played them rather than the way they originally were written. Both Joker and Loki have long histories in print, but weren’t what you’d call popular until their movies appeared.
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I think Joker was very popular before the movies. At least as popular as Batman because they’re arch-enemies. Loki is a tough one because of his mythological source. He gets used a lot outside of the comics because of this. More than Thor at times. Yet, the comic version is definitely because of the movie portrayal.
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