"Who is your favorite villain in fiction?”

I like to ask people this question.  The answer is always entertaining, and says a lot about both the person and the work the character comes from.  I have been asking it for a while and messily cataloging the answers in notebooks and edges of paper.  The person has to be fictional, but it can be from any kind of media.  It doesn’t have to be favorite in terms of liking them.  It’s all about who sticks in people’s heads, who haunts them, or who they thought was cool rather than scary. 

There’s something memorable and compelling about a well-done villain.  Even though they are by definition the bad guy, they are intriguing and compelling.  Conflict is an essential element in fiction, and while you can have your man-vs.-nature or man-vs.-society, most stories involve a specific antagonist. They are the face that ruins everything for the hero.  The hero has to destroy the death ray and resolve the plot, but it is the villain driving to plot forward and providing the motivation.  The person who makes the ray gun.  The more effective the villain, the greater the hero seems for defeating them. 

Where would superheroes be without the colorful rogue gallery?

Villains are a hallmark of my favorite kind of fiction, that categorical lump known as ‘genre’ writing: sci-fi, fantasy, thriller, horror, you-name-it. 

They provide a comforting vision of the world, with the idea that evil is easily recognizable, classy, elegant, and wears a nice suit.  Would that were true.  As I write, I’m currently in the middle of a cold war with an insane roommate, embroiled in the arduous process of getting her to move out.   Had she comes up to me waving a cape and twirling a moustache, I never would have signed the lease to live with her in the first place. 

The antagonist doesn’t have to be obvious and stuck in black and white morality.  Some of the best kinds are subtle, people you don’t see coming, or ones who blur the lines of morality into a murky grey.    This blog will be devoted to exploring all kinds of antagonists, in a search of what makes them effective and how they contribute to an overall story well told.  This is all purely for fun and improving writing.  It is not in any way endorsing dastardly activity in the real world.