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Making an Antagonist:
How to Make Your Villain Interesting
How to Make Your Villain Interesting
Villains are an integral part of fiction. For there to be a protagonist for us to cheer or root for, there needs to be an antagonist, someone to stand in their path one way or another, to make it so their journey to success is not as easy – or, indeed, so they never make it at all. Look at Greek plays, look at Shakespeare, look at nearly 100 years of film and television: villains, rivals, foes, antagonists, whatever you want to call them, most stories tend to lack without someone facing off against our main characters.
The problem with villains is that the most iconic antagonists in the modern age are generally over the top, magnificently created masterpieces of villainy, creatures so evil and deprived they seem to have clouded how we view this archetype. Darth Vader, Voldemort, Blofeld, Loki: when we think of villains, we tend to judge them against those names, but they and their ilk are not the only antagonists in fiction.
Basically, it is important to remember that ‘antagonist’ does not mean ‘scheming maniacal psychopath bent on destroying the world’. Being the villain of a story does not mean they have to at a Bond-level of intensity, psychosis or grandeur. A villain’s role is to challenge the hero in one way or another, to make them question their beliefs, their morals, their goals, their emotions. They are an important part of nearly every story, but when writing, it is so easy to try and compare and compete with these examples that it only leads to failure.
Having won Best Antagonist four times at our Workshop Awards, we thought it would be appropriate if I gave people a little lesson in how to make the villains of your story work, no matter what shape they take.
Prepare for Trouble
So there are various different forms your antagonist could take. It could be a romantic rival, an adversary at work, or indeed, the mob boss out to conquer the world. But before we talk about them, let’s focus on the typical antagonists in Pokémon fics, since this is a Pokémon forum after all. There are two villain archetypes in particular that are very common throughout this community and appear in about 90% of stories: The Gary and The Giovanni.
The Gary
This is perhaps the most common antagonist in Pokémon fan fic, one who fits into almost any genre of storytelling. The Gary is essentially just The Rival: stereotypically a childhood friend, acquaintance or relative that starts the journey the same time as the hero, or someone they meet early on in the journey, usually within the first dozen chapters. Their role in the story is typically to provide challenges for the protagonist to overcome, usually by defeating them in battle regularly or deliberately antagonising them/pushing them to carry on. They are not necessarily ‘villainous’ in terms of seeking to purposefully defeat the trainer (see below for more on that), but they are an antagonist. Whether it’s a friendly rivalry or one born of hatred or jealousy, it is still a rivalry, and the relationship between them and your hero should be seen as such.
When crafting The Gary, keep these things in mind:
- Don’t make them directly a ‘Gary’ i.e. cocky, a ladies man, the childhood fr/enemy from the home town. Try and do something different with your rival: different genders, different personalities, different backstories, anything to make them appealing. The anime-style ‘Gary’ can work if done right, but it’s more interesting to have the rivalries begin and be fuelled by something else, such as Ash and Paul’s conflict over how to best raise Pokémon.
- They don’t have to be someone who lived next door to the hero all their life, but if that is the case, add some layers to the rivalry asides from simply knowing each other. What was their relationship like as kids? Where does the sense of rivalry come from? Is it mutual, one sided?
- On that note, if you’re going to have a rival, it should be an important part of the story. Having someone for them to battle every few chapters or who conveniently shows up at every gym/contest hall to boast about their victories is a bit dull and uninspired. The rivalry should play a role in how the protagonist thinks and be more than just an occasional challenge. If the rival is your only antagonist, then its role should be given the proportionate amount of attention. Like any hero/villain conflict, there should be some sense of a finality to the rivalry in the end, whether a solid conclusion/victory/defeat.
- I talk about this more below, but the anime in particular does a common thing where the rival eventually becomes friends with Ash or magically learns to see things his way (i.e. Paul). It is a bit of a cop out and doing so just to make your hero look great isn’t great storytelling. More emotional rivalries, such as Ash having to battle a friend in nearly every league, are much more interesting in fiction. If your hero and villain spend the whole story at each other’s throats, it should take something significant to change that behaviour.
The Giovanni
While The Gary is perhaps more common and slots more easily into the traditional journey fic, just as many stories deal with The Giovanni: this is your stereotypical megalomaniac who is hell bent on ruling/destroying the world, or at the very least stealing a lot of Pokémon, making a lot of money and/or getting a few legendaries. Typically, these villains are taken right out of the games: Cyrus, Ghetsis, Lysandre, Archie and Maxie, and, of course, Giovanni, the Kingpin of the Pokémon world. These characters are defined by the scale of their goals and the grandeur with which they plan on achieving it (generally controlling legendary Pokémon to do something big and destructive).
It’s difficult to get these characters right since their game counterparts tend to have very vague motivations, simply focused on the end result and achieving it for the sake of conquering the for the sake of winning. The important thing to keep in mind when plotting a Giovanni is that the villain has to be more than just their goals. Why does Cyrus want to create a new world? Why does Ghetsis create this lie about liberating Pokémon? Make your villain more than simply a person out to wreak havoc and give them some real purpose for being in the story.
It’s worth noting that The Giovanni covers basically any villain you would see in your average summer blockbuster, so is applicable to any mad scientist, evil dictator, megalomaniac CEO or psychotic mercenary leader whose plans are on a national or global scale of destruction and conquering. This also applies to powerful Pokémon, legendary or not, with plans of taking over the world.
A Different Brand of Evil
While those two types of villains are the most common in Pokémon fiction, there are plenty of other antagonists you could work into your no matter the genre.
The Queen Bee: Common in chick flicks, female high school dramas or any comedy with a mum in it, the Queen Bee is basically a prissy, generally controlling teenage girl/woman/mother in control of either a social circle, PTA, some sort of group who is in competition against the hero or sees them as a threat from a social standing. Can just as easily be male but generally this archetype is reserved for women. Think Regina George in Mean Girls or Helena in Bridesmaids.
Romantic Rival: If you are doing a shipping fic or traditional romance, your antagonist could be another person seeking love. This could come in the form of someone that is already married, dating or betrothed to one of the leads, or someone trying to split your couple up. This person doesn’t scream ‘villain’ in the same way The Giovanni does, but they are a threat to the relationship and should be treated as such. They could be an antagonist in the sense that splitting up this character from one of the mains will be deeply upsetting/heart-breaking, causing conflict between our two heroes trying to get together (i.e. The Affair). Basically any romantic film out there has these elements: pick a few and go from there.
Parents: It’s common to reveal that a parent or parental figure has secretly been the villain all along (i.e. Darth Vader – sorry for the 40 year old spoiler), so you could easily turn someone’s mum or dad into any of these other tropes. However, a parent can be an antagonist on a smaller scale. In romantic stories, they could be the person trying to keep the young lovers apart. In Pokémon fiction, parents can be the ones trying to stop the character from going on a journey or perhaps filling them with self-doubt over their decisions (see The Long Walk). There is also the option if you’re going for an expansion-type fic that the parent is someone in the universe, say a gym leader or Champion, and their legacy and decisions hang over the protagonist (see Myths of Unova). Parents can also be meddlers, scheming and influencing the events of their children for their own gain (i.e. Cersei in Game of Thrones). These are not traditional antagonists and may not be particularly villainous, but it again comes down to how your write them. They can easily be replaced with any other family member (sibling, aunt, uncle, grandparents) who holds power/influence over the hero.
The Work Rival: This is a person whose sole goal throughout the story appears to be antagonising your hero in their field. Instead of The Gary, where the person is generally better or on the same level, the Work Rival is someone who wants to be better than the hero or wants them removed as competition, and will generally go to any lengths to achieve that goal. This is someone who actively wants the hero to fail rather than seeing it as a fun challenge. Think of Sue Sylvester from Glee, or Wilhelmina Slater from Ugly Betty: both characters see other people in their work place as threats to their success, and their goal is to stop them getting ahead. The Waif in Game of Thrones is another perfect example.
This archetype works with school/academy fics as well: you have someone who wants to be top of the class and sees your hero as their main obstacle in achieving that. The archetype can be used in lieu of the traditional rivalry, but should be seen and written differently (i.e. Gold in Kris vs Gold).
The Bully: Pretty self-explanatory: someone who is mean to your hero for the sake of being mean. Can play into some of the other tropes, such as The Gary, but generally a bully-villain should be mean all over with no clear goal or motivation at first, but should develop over the course of the story (ie Draco Malfoy).
Abusive Authority Figure: Politician, doctor, social worker, police officer, this is another self-explanatory one. Someone who has power over an individual/s and uses that influence to get what they want: sex, drugs, increase their hold on power, your story, you decide.
The Anti-Villain: You could use this label to define a variety of characters. You have stories where an unpleasant or immoral lead is the protagonist (the ‘anti-hero’ ie Walter White), and the villain is the person trying to bring them down – so really they are a good guy, but we are meant to root for the baddie so they in turn are our antagonist. TV Tropes also states that an ‘anti-villain’ could be someone who uses good methods to achieve evil goals, or evil methods to achieve good. Usually this is some law enforcement official trying to stop someone they think of as bad but we as the audience know is well intentioned (Officer Stacy against Spider-Man).
The Mob Boss: Similar in terms of cruelty as The Giovanni, but their goals are more linked to drugs, money and sex as opposed to world domination, and use violence as opposed to divine intervention, sorcery or indeed legendary Pokémon to achieve that for themselves.
Henchmen: Big or small, any self-respecting villain has some sort of henchmen to aid them in their quest. They don’t have to be great characters but should be more than just muscle, and certainly shouldn’t just be a bumbling Disney level fool – if the villain is an actual threat, their only sidekick realistically would not be a simpleton there to get confused and crack jokes.
- As I mentioned earlier, Pokémon can just as easily be the villains of your story, and many of this archetypes can be used to humanise your Pokémon. Think of anthropomorphic characters out there: Shree Khan in The Jungle Book, Smaug in The Hobbit, even Diesel in Thomas the Tank Engine, and you can see that villainous attributes can be used on anyone and anything.
- You can also have more metaphorical villains, such as a disease, a secret or personal issues with the protagonist/s, that causes the drama, but that level of characterisation rests more on the hero than the villain, and can co-exist with a physical villain.
A Recipe for Success
Just like any other character out there, your villain has to be interesting in order for your readers to care about them. If your villain is simply evil for the sake of evil, or their motivations/backstory are not hashed out enough, then their grand scheme loses its impact. Look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe films for example: you have Loki, whose plans are not exactly original but he has layered motivations, is devilish in his execution and has a sense of mischief around him that makes him compelling to watch. Then you have other villains, who are more along the lines of ‘I want to make money/end the world’, and that’s about as much personality as they get. The simple fact is your villain has to be more than just their plan to work as a character, otherwise they are simply a plot device instead of a person.
The key thing you should remember is that the villain should be more than just a living obstacle for your hero to overcome. Your villain should be integral to your story: if you could swap Giovanni in your story for Archie or Cyrus, than the villain has little purpose being there.
When planning a villain, you should be asking questions like this:
- What is their goal? How do they intend on doing it?
- What is their motivation? Why do they want to break them up/stop them going on a journey/take over the world?
- How does their role tie into the hero’s journey?
- Why do they see the hero as a threat? Why does the hero see them as a threat? (This relationship is key – if there is not a believable connection between the hero and villain, the whole plotline won’t work).
- How do they treat the hero? How do they treat their friends, colleagues, loved ones?
- What is their backstory? How did they get to this point?
- What are the themes of your story, and how can the villain tie into that?
- How will they react to the events of the story? How do they handle victory, defeat?
Whether your villain appears in every chapter or only emerges from the shadows in the climax, they need to have these motivations, goals and just general personality to make them interesting. Even if you save explaining why they did what they did until the very end, they still need to have a reason for it. Only bad heroes are evil for the sake of evil (The Joker in The Dark Knight has his reasons for all he did, even if it was organised chaos) – unless you are writing an animated movie, your villain needs layers to be captivating.
One thing I believe you should avoid is making the villain overly sympathetic. Villains need layers, but don’t make them apologetic or undermine them so much that you remove them as a threat. Even if you give them a tragic backstory, such as losing their family as a consequence of war, it shouldn’t make what the villain does entirely inexcusable. You can make it so the hero becomes conflicted about whether to stop them or not, or indeed who they really should blame, but if the villain is planning on murdering a lot of people or destroying a country, losing their husband/wife isn’t enough to justify what they do. Everyone has issues, not everyone solves them by trying to destroy the world.
(Note: when dealing with younger, school aged characters, it is fairly acceptable for the source of their villainy to come from inconsequential matters given their age.)
There is one thing I hate in any work of fiction and that is when, near the end of the movie, book or TV show, the villain reveals they have really just been jealous of the hero the whole time and that’s why they’ve been so cruel, and basically admits defeat. It’s a plotline that can work if done well, but it also can go against the grain of the story and comes across very Mary-Sueish: “Oh, main character, I’m sorry I was so mean to you, you are just such a wonderful person I couldn’t help it!” That is a terrible ending and takes away all threat and fear from the villain – don’t do that at all costs!
Other things to remember are:
- Even if you don’t reveal their plan until the very end, make sure it makes sense. It’s very easy to poke holes in villainous plans, so make sure you plot their plan out just as well as you would the rest of the story. Everything they do should be explainable and serve a purpose, even if it doesn’t change the story.
- It’s important your villain doesn’t lose constantly, or at least doesn’t lose easily. They will be zero threat if there is nothing to be frightened of. You can balance it by having their defeats be emotionally or physically draining/damaging on the heroes, or multiple causalities and property destruction is caught up in the fight.
- Don’t make them vaguely crazy. It’s quite common to make villains appear unhinged, mad and/or unstable to make them ‘unpredictable’ or kooky, but that is an old gimmick that doesn’t work if that is their only character attribute. Their madness should be rooted in something to be believable and perhaps make them relatable, and they shouldn’t be so crazy they are simply irritating. There is a difference between the madness of The Joker in The Dark Knight, which has a solid enough plan backing his insanity, and the madness of Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman, which was just fucking irritating.
- Their end goal/actions should never go beyond the realistic capabilities of their situation. Villains with unexplainable power or influence are difficult to connect to or believe, so you should ground their strength in something, big or small, to make them work. One common trope is to have the villain be a homeless orphan or some variation of that who manages to rise to the top of the food chain and become a global heavy hitter with enough influence to destroy the world – realistically, that is a bit of a stretch. Their money, skills, power needs to grow from somewhere.
On the smaller scale, if you’re going to have a situation where the antagonist goes mad and ends up shooting the hero/someone close to them, you would need to give it some context or foreshadowing earlier. Again, everyone has issues, not everyone solves them with weaponry.
Conclusion
There is one thing above all else you should remember: if you go into this thinking ‘Oh, I better put a villain in there’ simply for the sake of doing so, they will almost always suck. I am generalising a bit, but you shouldn’t have a villain cause you feel you need one: stories can be good without them, conflict can come from within or from those around them. If you force a villain in without much attention or commitment, your story will be worse off for it. Give your villain and their story as much attention when planning to the rest of your characters and you’ll have the makings of a great story.
However, a story needs drama, it needs conflict. Writing about someone travelling around a region having a jolly good time is not going to keep people coming back to read. Some stories can excel at making the drama internal based around the protagonist/s, but no matter what genre you hope to write in, your character needs something to make their journey a little bit trickier, and putting another person in their way is an easy way of doing that. Hopefully this article has made it clear that you don’t need a psychotic terrorist to give your story drama, but whether your villain is an angry auntie or an irritable workmate, make them as relatable, believable and layered as you would any other character and your story will be the better for it.
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