Why can't we just have evil villains?

[Lindley]

I don't disagree with that. But from a storytelling perspective, the "interesting" part of a scenario like that isn't going to be the bad guy; it's going to be the effect on the victim.

Which is certainly a fine way to construct a narrative. The game Max Payne takes this approach and it works very well.

But that usually only gives you an iconic hero; if you want an iconic villain that people remember and talk about for years, you have to approach things a bit differently.

 

[Kegg]

I don't disagree with that. But from a storytelling perspective, the "interesting" part of a scenario like that isn't going to be the bad guy; it's going to be the effect on the victim.

Which is certainly a fine way to construct a narrative. The game Max Payne takes this approach and it works very well.

But that usually only gives you an iconic hero; if you want an iconic villain that people remember and talk about for years, you have to approach things a bit differently.

A counterargument:

Darth Vader.

Now before people jump on me all at once, I want to stress I mean a guy from a 1977 movie called Star Wars. This movie and the impact he made in this movie is the reason we've had so many other films, more than a few of which go into his motivations at much greater length. There's no denying that Star Wars, however, is the film that made the gent a cinematic icon.

What are his motivations in this movie? Um. He's a guy who, in Obi-Wan's words, 'turned to evil', and as an agent of the Empire seems mostly concerned about crushing the rebellion and the odd throat, either as an interrogation tactic or just because someone insulted his religion (you do not want to work in the same office as this guy).

His only human connection is with his old master, a man he'd very much like to meet and kill. He has a cold, professional rapport with the other Imperial lackey... and that's basically it. He's a black hat kind of villain.

He's also an interesting example because attempts in all subsequent films to humanise him (starting with his legendary and oft-repeated revelation in Empire) are also efforts to move him from the first kind of villain, the unsubtle, straighforwardly evil guy, to a more nuanced human being with motivations and agendas - with, infamously, mixed results at best.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

^ There's also the matter of Sauron in LOTR. Not a whole lot of character depth to him, either. But they represent arguably two of the biggest "franchises" in town.

 

[Kegg]

In no version of LOTR, however, is Sauron a particularly memorable villain. He'd support Lindley's hypothesis more than mine - the interesting stuff in LOTR is stuff other than Sauron, simply put.

Hell as a villain and a character it's Gollum that steals the show, and he's a complicated, ambivalent person. The Jackson films remedy the imbalance by emphasizing Saruman as a 'classic Vader'-type villain.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

I completely agree about Gollum being the most compelling, complex villain of LOTR -- heck, Sam even comes right out and calls him a villain, despite Frodo's continued trust in Gollum. But even Gollum's issues stem from a very simple motivation: greed.

And, of course, without Sauron, there is no War of the Ring. His is an essential character and the biggest villain of the story. So while Tolkien helps himself out by constructing more tangible "villains" for the heroes to confront along the way (including their own inner conflicts), it's still all about defeating simple-evil-Sauron.

EDIT:
BTW, I'm not actually arguing in favor of simple villains. But I think it's fascinating to consider that some of the most popular franchises utilize fairly straightforwardly "evil" villains.

 

[Lindley]

Okay, let's add a corollary to the theory:

Any lack of depth in a villain may be offset by sufficient badassity.

 

[Kegg]

Okay, let's add a corollary to the theory:

Any lack of depth in a villain may be offset by sufficient badassity.

That's definitely something I can sign up to.

 

[David cgc]

It's all well and good to talk about the psychology behind someone's actions or how interesting you think they'd be based on such and such a motivation, or what logical construct you can errect to justify not using the word, but if a man broke into your house right now, tied you up and made you watch as he raped and then murdered your wife, it's not going to matter much whether he did it because he was abused as a child or because it was Tuesday and he just wanted to. It would be objectively wrong in any scenario, with no possible mitigating justification and thus evil.

What if me and my wife had done the same thing to him last week, because we're a pair of inexplicable bastards? Except we did the kids, too, so we really had it coming.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Okay, let's add a corollary to the theory:

Any lack of depth in a villain may be offset by sufficient badassity.

Sounds good to me.

 

[Cartoonist]

I don't disagree with that. But from a storytelling perspective, the "interesting" part of a scenario like that isn't going to be the bad guy; it's going to be the effect on the victim.

Which is certainly a fine way to construct a narrative. The game Max Payne takes this approach and it works very well.

But that usually only gives you an iconic hero; if you want an iconic villain that people remember and talk about for years, you have to approach things a bit differently.

A counterargument:

Darth Vader.

Now before people jump on me all at once, I want to stress I mean a guy from a 1977 movie called Star Wars. This movie and the impact he made in this movie is the reason we've had so many other films, more than a few of which go into his motivations at much greater length. There's no denying that Star Wars, however, is the film that made the gent a cinematic icon.

What are his motivations in this movie? Um. He's a guy who, in Obi-Wan's words, 'turned to evil', and as an agent of the Empire seems mostly concerned about crushing the rebellion and the odd throat, either as an interrogation tactic or just because someone insulted his religion (you do not want to work in the same office as this guy).

His only human connection is with his old master, a man he'd very much like to meet and kill. He has a cold, professional rapport with the other Imperial lackey... and that's basically it. He's a black hat kind of villain.

He's also an interesting example because attempts in all subsequent films to humanise him (starting with his legendary and oft-repeated revelation in Empire) are also efforts to move him from the first kind of villain, the unsubtle, straighforwardly evil guy, to a more nuanced human being with motivations and agendas - with, infamously, mixed results at best.

I was all set to argue the superiority of complex villains, using Tony Soprano as my example, but then I caught this. And I had to ask myself, did I enjoy the original Vader more in the original Star Wars, or in the prequels (or even ROTJ)? Have to admit, he was a lot more impressive to me in the original.

And come to think of it, every great movie/TV villain I can think of off the top of my head was simplistic, and when their nobler aspects were explored I was intrigued, but not nearly as entertained as I'd been when they were two dimensional mustache-twirlers. It happened that way with Anakin, the Borg, the Klingons, the Dominion, the Shadows, and Spike. Conversely, the Centauri got a hell of a lot more interesting to me when they reclaimed their simplistic dream of an interstellar empire and set out to reconquer Narn. But maybe that was interesting precisely because Londo Mollari was already a complex character. OK, now I've confused myself.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

The thing is there are plenty of examples of good one-dimensional villains who work well in various stories, depending on the story. Some stories aren't trying to be much more than a fairy tale (Star Wars) and they follow the pattern of a fairy tale and that's great.

However, if all stories were nothing but that, stories would get annoyingly monotonous pretty quickly.

So, I respectfully submit, that what's really called for is a variety of kinds of villains. Particularly in serial stories. Granted Darth Vader was more effective in Star Wars than he was in Return of the Jedi. But, personally, I found the Emperor to be completely a snore-fest from Empire on through. He lacked Vader's style and without the style and being more or less "just evil", he was boring.

A great simple Black Hat villain has to have great style - that's what makes them work. The Alien in Alien was awesome for being very simple and terrifying in looks and strategy. Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity is fantastic for her hard edges and calculation, though we never really understand why she has a penchant for murdering her husbands. Hannibal Lector works best when he's just a brilliant lunatic playing mind games because he gets off on it.

However, there are just as many great complex villains. Would the first two Godfather movies work if Vito and Michael Corleone weren't such complex characters? Isn't it the side-by-side aspect of their love for their families along with their cold-bloodedness that is interesting?

The point here is - who and what are being explored? If you want the story to be about how your hero can overcome a seemingly unstoppable force - then you're probably going to end up with a fairly one-dimensional villain with either great style or great strategy or both. If you want the story to be about, well, anything else, then you're probably going to have a more complex antagonist who might be anyone from Nurse Ratched to Captain Bligh.

But you also have to ask, what makes an interesting protagonist - and a lot of times the protagonist and antagonist define each other. How interesting is a protagonist with no grey areas? You want the answer to that, ask yourself who you thought was cooler - pure as the driven snow farm boy Luke, or shoot first, smuggler Han?

There are a ton of stories where I can point out the hero would have been more interesting with a little grey, and a more complex villain would have provided that opportunity.

Harry Potter, I'm looking at you.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

It's like Tom Baker said of the Daleks in "Genesis of..", sometimes we like our bad guys to be rather more 2D.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

How interesting is a protagonist with no grey areas? You want the answer to that, ask yourself who you thought was cooler - pure as the driven snow farm boy Luke, or shoot first, smuggler Han?

I'd have to say Luke. Han was a jerk, an absolutely unlikable jackass who didn't give a crap about anyone other than himself. Han's no hero; Luke is.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

Meh. This whole topic is based on a premise (apologetically evil villains vs shades of gray villains-with-a-POV)............ when in fact, it's the execution that determines of the villain is a success. For every Emperor there's ten mustache-twirling villains who are completely forgettable, and ten over-written "complex" villains who we've already forgotten about because they're not memorable.

 

[Sci]

I think the question of how the antagonist should be portrayed depends upon what kind of story you're trying to tell.

If you're telling a story that's an archetypical story about good versus evil, then simplistic black hats are just fine -- and can be wonderful fun to play or watch.

If you're telling a story that's more complex but about how the good guys feel about a problem, with the villain's characterization serving primarily as a reflection upon the heroes, then a morally simplistic villain is also okay. An example of this is the Joker from The Dark Knight; TDK is a complex film, but it's complex insofar as it is the story of a society that is losing faith in its institutions and its social contract and nearly breaking down because of it. The Joker is not so much a character as a force of nature in that regard; he is the force that is causing Gotham to lose its faith in itself. He's a complex character philosophically, but morally speaking quite simple.

On the other hand, there are other stories where it is inappropriate for all villains to be morally simplistic. If you're telling a story about a clash of civilizations, for instance. Let's say you're telling the story of the Crusades, or of World War I. Well, the truth of the matter is, in that conflict, neither side was exactly good and neither side was exactly evil. Both sides had admirable qualities and both sides had horrible qualities, and it's important to capture that truth.

 

[DevilEyes]

The OP seems to be confusing the issue of complex villains vs simple villains with the issue of well-written realistic villains vs cartoonish moustache-twirling eeevil villains, "evil for the sake of it".

Complex villains, and complex characters in general, are more interesting. But simple villains can also work very well. However, both types of characters need to have a believable motivation in order to be effective villains who can produce real fear and sense of danger rather than just make the audience laugh at their campy silliness. And "I want to be evil for evil's sake" is not a believable motivation in any kind of fictional work.

A realistic, believable villain does not have to be complex. He/she may have a very simple motive. He/she may be a racist jerk, or a person driven by revenge, or a hypocritical power-hungry politician, or a deranged stalker, or an idealist who blindly believes in an ideology so much that they're ready to kill and do anything for it. He/she may or may not be sympathetic. But they all need to have a motive other than needing to be eeeevil for the sake of the plot.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

"Just evil" villains are not all that useful to fiction because they get boring fast through overexposure. The Emperor is a good example. Who the heck is he? Why should I care about him? He's okay as a tertiary character who just huddles in the background, cackling insanely, but not much use as a major character in an ongoing story. Ranting/cackling gets old fast.

The Sylar See-Saw is the best example of the simplistic-villain problem "just evil" Sylar gets too boring to use in ongoing stories, so the writers try to change it up. The problem then becomes their inability to think of anything else interesting to do with the guy, but that doesn't mean no writer could do it.

For instance, Nero. Yes, it's too bad his planet was blown up. Maybe it gives him a good excuse to exact revenge in a similar manner. But wouldn't it be cool if he just decided to start blowing up planets just for the hell of it?

I found Nero to be a dull villain (he wasn't a convincingly real person; he was just a "type") but a nutty Nero with inexplicable motives would have been no better and would have distracted the audience because they'd spend too much time wondering what his motives were and then walk out of the theater wondering why the writers forgot that part.

The best written villain I've ever run across doesn't come from sci fi: Dexter Morgan. He's so well written, he doesn't have to be relegated to the secondary role most bad guys inhabit but can serve as the protagonist of his story. That's how you can tell a really good villain: could he or she star in their own story and not bore everyone with their shallowness and cliched nature? Could they stand on their own two feet as genuine, believable, unique people?

 

[Australis]

But Dex is the 'good guy', working under Harry's Code. Evil turned to a more worthy purpose (for a given value of 'more worthy').

 

[The Wormhole]

Not sure if this is related to the topic, but after seeing Avatar, I want to see sci-fi again where the humans are noble and heroic and the aliens they fight are twisted and pure evil.

 

[Kegg]

The Wormhole, go watch Starship Troopers.*

On Dexter:

The villains in Dexter are characters like the Ice Truck Killer. It's also why I'd be reluctant to call the leads in The Godfather villains as well - they're more morally dubious protagonists than villains.

Even if I accepted the idea of a villain protagonist, that only works to my mind when it's a hero/villain story told from the villain's perspective.

There aren't heroes in the Godfather films in that sense, and Dexter very clearly is a hero in the latter sense.

Yes, the hero.

S2 makes overt what occurred to me while watching S1: Dexter is basically a less-apologetic version of the American superhero myth, the vigilante with an eagle eye for justice and the tragic past that has compelled him to do this and the moral code and yadda yadda yadda.

Granted, Dexter is only a 'hero' in a rather ironic sort of way - I'd lean generally towards calling him a morally dubious protagonist like the Corelones, but the label fits him better than villain.

I am well aware many will just outright reject my arbitrary definition of what a villain is, but hell, to me a villain just isn't 'a bad guy', he's the antagonist. Yet I disgress.

*Facetioius of me I know. But hey!