Villains

Okay, I thought I'd better write the post about villains immediately. I might forget about it otherwise.

I've always had a thing for the villains, no matter whether it was fairy tales as a child or those bad guys in the movies these days. And it's not just the whole "dark and dangerous" thing. (Although, admittedly, it's part of my fascination.)

Usually, the hero is far less interesting than the villain(s) of a story. The hero tends to be a 'good guy' who feels it's his duty to rid the world of a few baddies. Villains on the other hand usually have issues and goals - and hidden motives, too. They are always good for a surprise in the middle of the story.

And - as a writer - I also have to admit that writing a scene for a villain is much more fun. You can go deep inside your soul - to those dark parts with the extra padlock attached - and pull out all those dark feelings and evil wishes you have ever harboured and let the bad guy (or girl) actually make them come true!

The background of the bad guys usually doesn't get told as precisely as that of the good guy (though I like the background of Batman ... but then, he's me anyway...). That leaves more space for the fantasy. And as most of those villains aren't really nice ('nice' and 'villain' don't go well together), one might wonder why they are the way they are.

Villains are quite fascinating on the whole. They get to do everything everybody sooner or later wishes to be able to do. And in the end they usually also get an interesting death. No 'heart attack' or something like that. Not your average deadly accident. No, villains are shot, squashed by something big or something else like that. Sometimes there even isn't enough for a grave ... which is good as well, because a person without a grave may still be alive (even without being Hammer Production's "Dracula").

That's another trait about villains I like a lot: the way they pop up after everybody thought they were dead already. It's cool and it makes stories much more interesting.

To add something that fits with my post about heroes: Villains work marvellously with heroes, obviously. The main reason for this might be that while heroes are slightly masochistic, villains are sadists. Heroes submit themselves, as I've pointed out in the post mentioned above, to a good cause; villains, on the other hand, want to control and dominate. It's a perfect relationship ... in a strange way.

The will - or quite often rather the need - to dominate is an important feature for everyone who wants to be a villain. A villain doesn't ask his henchmen to do something, he demands it ... and if they fail to obey, it's most likely the last failure of their life. That's a really strict management - which a lot of managers probably would love.

Yes, I love villains more than heroes - and I always will. They're just so much more interesting than heroes.