Psychology for Writers

One of my favorite all time villians is Ben Linus from the tv show Lost. I am not a Lost expert, but to me his character hit all of the points you make. At times he seemed so sympathetic, driven by wanting the best for his daughter and preserving the island. However he was also the master manipulator, destroying people who interfered with his agenda. He often spoke the truth yet the viewer knew he was doing it to manipulate the situation. At times his actions made me want to think he was just pure evil, but I just couldn't. He was way more complex than that. I always wanted to know more about Ben.

My favourite villain, or, one of them, is the Master from Doctor Who. He's completely brilliant, utterly insane and his motion is basically 'ANYTHING THAT ANNOYS THE DOCTOR LOL'. He's not 2 dimensonal at all, though...both him and the Doctor have this brilliant and mysterious past together, he hears drums in his head and he turned everybody on the planet into himself. He's amazing.

I just finished reading Graham Greene's book The Human Factor, which deals with people working in a section of England's Foreign Office where a leak is detected. By the end of the book you are questioning who is supposed to be the good guy and who the bad. Great insight into human motivations and what they consider good or evil.

If you haven't read it, do so and it will probably help your writing.

Just as how advertising is increasingly more sophisticated in order to override our adaptive resistance to its seduction, is it far-fetched to assume that villains 'of old' are too easy to figure out simply because we have been exposed to their hidden mechanisms far too many times? Even the 'unpredictable' Joker of Keith Ledger will be as DSM or one-dimensional to new audiences as Brahm Stoker's (sp?) Dracula is to us. And if that's true, then this artice will look silly.

Actually, I would argue that Bram Stoker's Dracula -- actually Bram Stoker's, as in the character in the book -- is still a great character. The only failing of the character, I thought (when I read the book) was that he went down too easily. In other words, the character himself, as an allegorical symbol, was extremely well-written; however, modern audiences are used to the villain getting up a few times before he's ultimately defeated. Dracula went down and stayed down after one mighty blow.

Archetypes, if you go back to true Jungian theory, are archetypes because they come from the collective unconscious -- they're built into the human psyche. And those archetypes -- when they are truly built as strong archetypes -- still reverberate with us. They're alive in so many blockbusters, from The Matrix to Inception. They're also alive in advertising, in many, many forms.

I do see your point, however. By the time I saw the movie Se7en, dozens of films had echoed its approach, and I wasn't impressed by the film that had shocked so many. Saw was another horror film that shocked people because its approach was novel -- but now they're on what, Saw 10? And that doesn't even include the copycats. We do get desensitized to the exact same treatment of a character over and over. And yes, if everyone were to suddenly play psychopaths the way Ledger did, eventually we'd get desensitized to that redundant approach. Eventually, in other words, Ledger's approach would be copied and echoed so often that it would become a cardboard cutout. And that would be boring. But then my argument in the article becomes even more important -- we need to find ways to delve deeper, to make OUR villains unique, their behaviors unexpected.

space invaders

Anton Chigurh aka Death Incarnate aka that badass with the completely implausible suppressed shotgun and cattle gun from No Country For Old Men. He's the opposite of Ledger's colorful psychopath, a coldly efficient killer who moves like an inexorable force, leaving a wake of death behind him. Sadly I haven't read the book yet (sacrilege I know!) but I imagine Cormac Mcarthy had to be pleased with Javier Bardem's interpretation.

I don't know that I'd agree about the bad guy in Brown's book... He does have personal motivations for his actions, a back story with a number of transitional stages... The issue is that in order for the (somewhat obvious) surprise to pay off, we don't see the transition happen, just the end result.

For the questions you pose to writers creating a character, I could answer all of them for Mal'akh... clearly that isn't enough to make the character stand out... But the bad guys in Brown's books are macguffins to justify the mystery, their motivations aren't all that important.

What about redeeming a villain in a story? Giving the reader some insight into why they might be the way they are. Especially for a villain who does not have a pathological issue, they are just bad people? Example: Mr. Potter the banker in Its a Wonderful Life. He's not mentally ill. He's just a miserly old man. I watch that movie and can't help but want to see something in him that gives you insight into why he is the way he is. Do some villains need to be redeemed in a story.

BTW, Javier Bardem nailed Anton Chigurh. I read the book.

To the Anton Chigurh fans -- I need to read No Country for Old Men. Thanks for the tip!

Tim -- Many of my favorite villains are the ones that you kind of "get." One of my favorite tricks in a story is to make the villain someone the reader understands well enough to make him or her (the reader) a little uncomfortable. That is -- since most readers consider themselves good people, if they really, truly "get" a bad guy, it can introduce a little cognitive dissonance (psychological discomfort).

It can also be interesting to turn a villain into a hero. Have you ever seen the film Pitch Black? You start the film kind of freaked out by Vin Diesel's character, because he's this monster of a man, but over time you learn that a) there's a bigger [human] monster and b) that Diesel's character is actually a hero. The transformation is fascinating, and incredibly effective.

Hey - I am really glad to discover this. Good job!

I agree with most of this. Villains need to be bad, but they are more engaging baddies if they are at least a bit 'human' i.e. if we can as readers in some sense engage with their struggles and perhaps wonder 'what if...?'

Alex from A Clockwork Orange.

I don't know if I agree with the villain chosen in the article. Just because The Joker is unpredictable and mysterious, it doesn't lend any sort of "roundness" to his character. I came away from that movie thinking he was just the picture of pure, unadulterated evil. That's a cutout if I've ever seen one.

Mal from Inception. A figment of the main character, Dom's, own imagination. Try cutting that out of cardboard.

Popeye from Faulkner's Sanctuary
Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky from Dostoyevsky's Demons

Very interisting... I will apply these tips in my chronicles blog.

Thanks