Villainous Motivations

In a presentation on Dark Lords at this year's ICFA, the author of the paper raised the question of whether villains need a complex backstory for their motivations to make them credible as characters. The author didn't think so. He pointed out that a villain can have a realistic but simple, straightforward motive. He mentioned Wile E. Coyote, who just wants to eat the roadrunner. Granted, that original goal has apparently been complicated by feelings of frustration, with a competitive drive to prove a silly bird can't get the better of him. Nevertheless, I admit appetite or greed can be a sufficient motive by itself. A bank robber or a pirate can serve as a believable antagonist if he simply wants the loot. But what about a Dark Lord (or Lady) or other supervillain?

Hannibal Lecter in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS offers an interesting example. He's a highly educated, brilliant, cultured, insightful psychiatrist who, as a villain, doesn't display particularly complicated motives. He's a sociopath who has fun manipulating people and, incidentally, likes to indulge his cannibalistic fetish. When HANNIBAL and HANNIBAL RISING gave him a backstory with what TV Tropes calls a "Freudian excuse," he underwent a fundamental change that subverted his portrayal in RED DRAGON and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS as an enigmatic, not-quite-human monster.

The Star Wars series, in my opinion, made Darth Vader more interesting by giving him a backstory to explain how the heroic Jedi warrior Anakin Skywalker became Vader, even though I think it falls short to some extent. Pre-Vader Anakin, to me, doesn't come across as a very engaging character. He grows from a rather nice kid into a whiny teenager, something of a disappointment as a future Dark Lord. And I never quite believed in his romance with the princess in the prequel trilogy. I found both characters more believable and engaging in the midquel animated series. Still, the prequel trilogy does give Anakin credible motives for turning to the Dark Side. The most prominent current example of a sympathetic villainous backstory is, of course, WICKED. It's been a long time since I've read the book, so I don't recall many details, but the movie (part one of Elphaba's story) does a wonderful job of showing the future Wicked Witch of the West as a misunderstood person who starts out good and is driven to the rebellion that gets her labeled as "wicked."

If a writer wants me to believe in a villain impelled by greed for limitless wealth or domination, I need to know more about him or her, because I can't identify with such motives. One can spend only so much money in a lifetime. As for ruling the world, why would anybody go to all that trouble? Such an antagonist, in my opinion, would be improved by a backstory to explain why he or she feels nothing will ever be enough. Otherwise, they remind me of a supervillain organization in an old cartoon series (I don't remember what) whose goal was "to destroy the universe for their own gain."

Lord Voldemort's drive to conquer wizard society in the Harry Potter series has credible roots in his bitterness about his Muggle father and his "weak" witch mother's death and, above all, his own terror of death. Fundamentally, all his actions spring from his obsession with attaining immortality.

Revenge is another motive for which I take some extra convincing. I've used it myself in my vampire novel CHILD OF TWILIGHT (direct sequel to DARK CHANGELING, although I think it could stand alone), but I consider it plausible only because the antagonist has been in suspended animation for the whole time since the event she's avenging -- the death of her brother. Therefore, her grief and rage are as fresh as if the death happened yesterday, not thirteen or so years in the past. I can imagine striking out in rage against an enemy at the moment I'm attacked or soon afterward. I can't empathize with the "revenge best served cold" philosophy. Spend years or decades brooding over an injury and plotting a complicated vengeance? What a waste of time and energy. So the avenger needs well-developed personality traits that make his readiness to act this way plausible.

One archetypal villain has generated much speculation over his motive in the past two millennia -- Judas Iscariot. "He did it for the money" is not convincing. As Dorothy Sayers explains in her commentary on THE MAN BORN TO BE KING, her twelve-part radio drama series about the life of Christ, Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels (who "knew what was in people") wouldn't have chosen an obvious crook as a member of His inner circle. Nor would He deliberately choose a villain for the explicit purpose of setting him up to damn himself by turning traitor. As Sayers points out, neither of those scenarios would make a convincing story. Judas must have begun as a loyal disciple and undergone a change that made him decide betraying Jesus was right. Two principal motivations have been proposed: (1) Judas wanted Jesus to lead a military revolt against the Roman occupation and thought being arrested would goad Him into taking that route. (2) Afraid Jesus' public actions were putting all of them in grave danger from the Jewish and/or Roman authorities, Judas hoped being arrested would frighten Jesus into behaving more cautiously. Dorothy Sayers's own explanation for the betrayal takes a third tack: Judas mistakenly thought Jesus was plotting violent revolution, became disillusioned, and betrayed Him to stop the nonexistent uprising.

The topic of supervillains always reminds me of the Evil Overlord list, which you may have read, an exhaustive catalog of things a sensible Dark Lord should or shouldn't do. It's a hilarious deconstruction of all the familiar villainous tropes and cliches:

Evil Overlord List

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Viable Villains

I've just finished reading Dean Koontz's latest fantasy thriller, QUICKSILVER, which I like better than a lot of his recent novels. For many years, almost every book he's written has featured the same kind of villain (or a secret cabal of them)—a sociopath with delusions of grandeur, an evil genius, at least a genius in his own eyes, dismissing the rest of the human species as inferiors who, if not deserving of extermination, exist only to serve the few elite supermen. QUICKSILVER does include one of those annoyingly unrelatable, often flat-out unbelievable characters, but he appears only briefly. The other human antagonists work for a covert federal agency; their motives make sense in context, to carry out their orders and suppress the danger they believe the hero represents. The principal villains, invaders from another universe, have no humanly relatable personalities or goals, but that inhumanity is appropriate to them. They're almost Lovecraftian in their alienness.

Aside from such utterly alien creatures, however, the typical sapient antagonist (as opposed to an animal or a force of nature) should have some relatable traits in the form of motives we can comprehend even if we condemn the methods of pursuing those aims. Even many readers' favorite "pure sociopath," predatory genius Dr. Hannibal Lecter, has desires other than his cannibalistic cravings, goals we can sympathize with. He wants freedom, along with the comforts and luxuries denied him in his windowless, high-security cell, as anybody in that plight would.

Frankenstein's creature wants kindness and companionship; only rejection turns him bitter, vengeful, and violent. Count Dracula wants to leave his worn-out homeland for a new country of boundless opportunity. Dr. Jekyll begins with the noble goal of splitting the evil dimension of humanity from the good and thereby controlling the former. The Phantom of the Opera wants the admiration and devotion of a young woman. In more recent fiction, Michael in THE GODFATHER doesn't start out as a bad guy; indeed, he has deliberately tried to dissociate himself from that part of his background. He devolves into a villain when his determination to protect his family gradually entangles him in his father's criminal empire. According to an often cited principle, every villain is the hero of his or her own story.

To me, more often than not, one-dimensional evil geniuses such as Koontz's recent antagonists feel no more believable than the supervillains in an old cartoon series whose purpose was "to destroy the universe for their own gain." They're sometimes fun to read about, but I can't in the least relate to their motivations.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS: villains, conflict and killing off characters

A couple of disclaimers.

First, this blog will contain SPOILERS for Gabriel’s Ghost, Shades of Dark and the movie, Serenity.

Second, I know I’m not remotely in the category of Joss Whedon. The man is brilliant. Beyond brilliant. Don’t take my questions and/or criticisms of his work as anything more than the ramblings of an author looking to make sense of the craft of fictional entertainment.

That being said, you by now may have surmised I watched the movie, Serenity, recently, and am somewhat perplexed over the death of Wash’s character. I watched the movie, not just because I thoroughly enjoyed Firefly, and not just because Whedon provides one helluva good romp with his stuff, but because I wanted to learn. One of the downsides of being an author—and YA author Stacey Kade (watch for her debut with Hyperion in 2010--right now she's still SFR author Stacey Klemstein) and I were chatting about this—is that reading for pleasure seems to happen less and less. It’s hard to read—or watch—something in your genre and not analyze characterization, plot, conflict and the like. So I found myself last weekend watching Serenity with one eye and breaking it down with the other: oh, bit of a plot twist, there. Oh, some layered on characterization here. Oh, major plot conflict coming up. Oh, here’s the regroup and revise scene…

Then, sitting in the cockpit of Serenity, just having crash-landed on the world of Miranda, Wash gets lanced. Skewered.

And I go, WTF?

Yes, obviously, it was an emotional moment. And writing is about emotional moments. “It’s the author’s job to manipulate the emotions of the reader,” said writing guru Dwight Swain. And I subscribe to that. But it’s also said that fiction must be more logical than real life.

And Wash’s death wasn’t plot-logical. It was emotional, no doubt. It wrenched the reader. But it wasn’t logical to the plot and didn’t create or improve on the growth of a major character.

Emotion for emotion’s sake is not enough in fiction. When it’s done like that, it becomes a cheap shot. Or what writing guru Jack Bickham refers to as “dropping an alligator through the transom.”

Book’s death, on the other hand, was plot logical. It impacted heavily on Mal and that was shown clearly. Mal was the one to find Book, was the one to hold him as he died. Prior scenes showed their friendship and their backstory conflict. Book’s death was a clear catalyst to Mal.

Wash’s wasn’t. For one thing, Wash and Mal had no backstory conflict and though they were clearly friends, it was a calm friendship for the most part. There wasn’t a Wash-Mal issue as there was a Book-Mal issue. Wash was a minor character who served a great role and was also the husband of Zoe, another minor character.

The two major characters, to me, in Serenity, were Mal and River. Writing gurus always ask: Whose story is it? And that’s a huge question that must be answered as you craft your fiction piece. If you don’t know whose story you’re telling, your piece will wander all over the galaxy, lost, in search of coherent and cohesive plot and conflict.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg details much of this on her Sime~Gen site:
http://www.simegen.com/school/workshop/WORKchoosingProtag.html

The main POV character is the one who ACTS FIRST -- the person attempting to impose their agenda on the course of events -- to get things to come out in their own favor. The VILLAIN or ANTAGONIST is the one who is acted-upon and objects.

River, through help from her brother, Simon, acts to escape the psychic detention facility that’s held her and tortured her. They end up—and much of this is backstory—on Mal’s ship, Serenity. But it’s Mal who acts—when the Alliance assassin confronts him, demanding River’s surrender—to tell the Alliance to take a hike and it’s Mal who acts to thwart the Alliance. Zoe, Jayne, Wash, Simon and the rest are all minor characters. The two main POV characters—and most of the movie’s scenes are with one or the other as key—are Mal and River.

Given that, Wash’s death is useless. Simon’s death would have made more sense. River is a main POV character. Simon is her beloved brother. His death would have forced her into “character growth.” Wash’s death doesn’t force with Mal or River into character growth (any more than had already occurred.)

So to me, Wash’s death was a cheap shot, basic stage door faux-trauma simply for the shock value. As a movie-goer, I thought it was an exciting, emotional scene. As an author, I thought it was sloppy.

Now, Stacey, much more a Whedon-ite than I am, had a bit of a different take on the matter:

“Wash...I probably wouldn't have killed him off, no. But here's the thing, it does, in a sick and twisted way, which is Joss's way, make sense for him to be the one to die. He is the MOST innocent out of all of those involved. And Mal...well, I think it all relates back to the Battle of Serenity in the war between the Alliance and the Brown Coats. Mal believed in the war, thought he was fighting on the side of good. He was in charge of a platoon. He and Zoe fought and continued to fight even after the battle was essentially over. Not only did they lose, but he and Zoe were the only ones who walked away. All the others reporting to him died. After that, Mal withdrew. He gave up his white hat, ceased to see himself as a good guy. He wanted nothing to do with helping others or getting involved in any cause. He looked out only for himself and what benefited him. He got involved in helping others only when forced by circumstances and the fact that he couldn't completely tamp down his do-gooder (for lack of a better term) conscience. He did not want the responsibility of all those lives on his "boat." In fact, Mal would have preferred, I think, to die rather than to be responsible for their deaths (see ep "out of gas").

So, in this situation, here we are again, Mal leading innocents into hopeless battle. He's taking on that white hat again, and his hands are bloodied by the deaths of those who follow him. And he's not going to quit this time.He has to confront his fear that he's going to cause the death of all these people and lose AGAIN. He's being forced to be the hero and he's going to go through with it, even if it kills him.”

I can see Stacey’s point but notice how much it relies on backstory—television episodes of Firefly, that the movie-goer may not have seen. The author can’t assume they’ve seen them. So to build a huge emotional twist like Wash’s death based on backstory unavailable to the viewer at the moment strikes me as… less than good. The movie should be able to stand on its own as a cohesive unit.

Now, it may be there were earlier scenes between Wash and Mal that were cut. That happens all the time and that’s a failing of any media—books included—that have time or word count restrictions. You have X amount of pages to do something or X amount of minutes to do something.

But to me, then, if you cut the prequel, the rationale for a major character’s death, then cut the death scene. Or rewrite it. Wash could simply have been seriously injured, his injuries providing conflict to the fleeing crew (Drag him along or leave him behind? Slow us down? Save his life?) and Mal. I would have bought into that fully. It might have even created more conflict and tension.

Wash’s death to me was quick, final and senseless.

I know. People die for senseless reasons all the time in real life. But read what I wrote above: fiction must be more logical than real life.

(BTW, Jacqueline has an excellent critique of an episode of Star Trek: Voyager in a similar vein. I couldn’t find it on the Sime~Gen website but I’m sure it’s there and perhaps she’ll post a link.)

So how does this fit in with my books?

Two characters. One I killed off, one I didn’t.

Del in Shades of Dark. Ren in Gabriel’s Ghost.

I really hated killing off Del because he was a hugely fun character. But Sully, a main character, had to have growth, had to experience sacrifice, had to be motivated to reach deeper inside himself. The two main motivations for Sully in Shades of Dark were Del and Chaz. I took both away from him near the end of the book. Chaz, of course, he regained. Del had to die. But Del had to die not only for Sully’s growth and lesson but to partially redeem Del as a character and yes, to be true to the character of Del as I built him. He wasn’t as much an evil character as a selfish one. But his selfishness was, to a great extent, cultural. As was his penchant for sacrifice and, in the end, sacrifice he does. He dies so Sully can live. Which, based on Del’s upbringing, mindset and culture, was exactly the way things should be.

I took pains to prequel—lightly so but I did it—that this was a possible outcome all through the book. Del’s line of “…and I shall walk again with kings…” and his adherence to Stolorth traditions set up completely the book’s end. Rash’mh han enqerma. A sacrifice in exchange for an unspeakable wrong. This was one of Del’s guiding principles—and yes, villains can have principles—and it was the logic behind his death.

So was Sully’s challenge to Del:

“You’ve told me many times I still need training. That a rogue Kyi like me is capable of utter destruction if I’m not careful. Then heed your own warning. Don’t force me to find out just what I’m capable of. Because when the dust settles, I will be the one left standing. And you know that.”

The character I initially killed off then rewrote and didn’t was Ren in Gabriel’s Ghost. Again, I was looking for a catalyst for change for the main character, Sully. But at the point I would have done it—and I’m grateful to the crit partners who pointed this out none too gently—it would have been more for emotional manipulation that character growth. It would have, in essence, been a cheap shot. The timing and placement were wrong and going back and rereading the old pages, I could see where Linnea the author had run out of ideas so, hey, let’s kill someone.

I ended up not doing so because Ren, alive, forced much more character growth on Sully then Ren’s death ever could have.

It’s a very easy trap to fall into when writing: let’s just throw on a bunch of actions that engender scary and unhappy emotions, and keep the reader reading. But eventually that’s exactly what the story will feel like: things just thrown on. More is not always better. In fact in fiction, more often produces crap. Conflict must come with a why, not just an ouch.

Maybe next week I’ll touch on why the capitulation of the Alliance assassin at the end of Serenity also set my writerly teeth on edge.

Unless you all want to open that dialogue here too…

(and I still think Joss Whedon is a freakin’ genius, and if I could produce stuff even half as good as he does, I’d be a happy camper…)

~Linnea

SHADES OF DARK, the sequel to Gabriel’s Ghost, July 2008 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/

I watched Sully’s eyes snap to black, his lips, thin. His hand clasping mine tightened. Shock gave way to anger, which gave way to something more primal, more male. It tasted of jealousy, possessiveness, dominance.

And all I had said was, “Hello, Sully. I just met Del.”

I poured the encounter into his mind almost as fast as he retrieved it. I held nothing back, not Del’s seductive handsomeness nor the power that fairly seethed beneath his surface, nor the ease with which he rendered me helpless, folding the Grizni back around my wrist.