How do you keep the villain from dominating the story and overshadowing the other characters?
Giving too much power to the villain
- Thread starter Joe Washington
- Start date
I think you do this by writing strong and relateble protagonists. It also depends I think if you're story revolves around the antagonist, if it is then obviously that person or persons are going to be the focus of the show and over shadow the "heroes".
While I'm not a writer, I'd have to agree with Admiral_Young. The audience MUST be able to relate to the "heros."
Otherwise your work will suffer the same fate as the Star Wars prequels. There we had heros who were not relatable at all. Anakin was a whiny, spoiled, asshole and Obi-Wan was pompous, self-righteous, conformist douche who tried to control Anakin with an iron fist. Since the audience couldn't identify with those characters, naturally the villians became the focus of their attention.
This didn't happen in the orginial trilogy. While Darth Vader was certainly a strong character who had the ability to overshadow every other character, we had heros who we could indentify with. On the whole, the heros probably weren't as interesting as Vader, from a storytelling perspective, but they all offered us something of ourselves we could relate to. Luke was the fish-out-of-water who wanted to do the right thing, Han was the rogue with a heart of gold, Leia was the strong willed leader we all would like to be.
Another good example is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. There we had villians who were just as strong and just as developed and nuanced as the heros. Dukat, for example, could easily have overshadowed Sisko. But, the fact that TPTB went to great lengths to humanize Sisko (his love of baseball, his relationships with his son and father, his romantic affairs, etc.) made him the more relatable figure.
Otherwise your work will suffer the same fate as the Star Wars prequels. There we had heros who were not relatable at all. Anakin was a whiny, spoiled, asshole and Obi-Wan was pompous, self-righteous, conformist douche who tried to control Anakin with an iron fist. Since the audience couldn't identify with those characters, naturally the villians became the focus of their attention.
This didn't happen in the orginial trilogy. While Darth Vader was certainly a strong character who had the ability to overshadow every other character, we had heros who we could indentify with. On the whole, the heros probably weren't as interesting as Vader, from a storytelling perspective, but they all offered us something of ourselves we could relate to. Luke was the fish-out-of-water who wanted to do the right thing, Han was the rogue with a heart of gold, Leia was the strong willed leader we all would like to be.
Another good example is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. There we had villians who were just as strong and just as developed and nuanced as the heros. Dukat, for example, could easily have overshadowed Sisko. But, the fact that TPTB went to great lengths to humanize Sisko (his love of baseball, his relationships with his son and father, his romantic affairs, etc.) made him the more relatable figure.
I think the best way is to use a great villain is sparingly. When you have a really charismatic and fascinating character (as the best villains tend to be), there's a temptation to overexpose them, but the smarter storytellers know how to give people just enough of them so you enjoy them every minute they're around, miss them when they're away, and never get sick of them.
I think perhaps the best example is in "The Silence of the Lambs", where the focus is squarely on Clarice, but Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter show up now and then, making all of their appearances engaging and building anticipation for the next one whenever they're offscreen. I imagine Christopher Nolan thought of this in writing how to integrate The Joker into "The Dark Knight", and I bet if Ledger was still alive, the next Batman movie would include scenes like the Lecter ones where The Joker is periodically visited in prison to gain insight into another villain.
I think perhaps the best example is in "The Silence of the Lambs", where the focus is squarely on Clarice, but Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter show up now and then, making all of their appearances engaging and building anticipation for the next one whenever they're offscreen. I imagine Christopher Nolan thought of this in writing how to integrate The Joker into "The Dark Knight", and I bet if Ledger was still alive, the next Batman movie would include scenes like the Lecter ones where The Joker is periodically visited in prison to gain insight into another villain.
By making them spend the entirety of the story within the confines of a bear trap. Works every time.
I think Jaws does it the best of any movie. The shark is rarely seen, except for barrels throughout the movie.
Why worry? Just give into the Darkside and let the villain have all the power. Let him win. Let the story take you where it needs to go. ;-)
Exactly. There is nothing wrong with having a charismatic, complex and interesting villain, but the mistake that Hollywood has often made is to make the protagonist a flat goody-too-shoes. If you make the protagonist relatable but also flawed and complex, you can have just the right balance, especially if you can create a strong dynamic between the hero and the villain. This is the stuff that great drama is made of. A good example is the above mentioned Sisko and Dukat (and Kira and Dukat), or Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter.
You keep a popular and charismatic villain (if you're lucky enough to have one) at bay by making sure the hero isn't cardboard and dull. Heroes don't have to be perfect; an innocuous fault can be charming. Luke whines, Leia's a bitch, Han's a selfish jerk and something of a fraud. Kirk is pompous, Spock is arrogant, snide, and severely repressed, McCoy is cranky and a bit too emotionally unstable for a doctor. I could go on and on, but that's probably more than enough examples right there.
Since Anakin isn't really a "hero," he shouldn't have just one innocuous fault. He should have one fatal fault. And by keeping it to one - the one that will cause his fall - we can have him be heroic for two movies and most of the third without it being too implausible. My pick for the fatal fault is lust for power, because it's consistent with Vader's behavior and not inconsistent with a whole slew of heroic virtues - courage, resourcefulness, intelligence, self-confidence, etc. That's why "loving Padme too much" (blech) or fearfulness in general just doesn't work as the fatal fault.
As for Obi-Wan, he should have been a decent, kind-hearted guy who sacrificed his whole life to the inhuman demands that the Jedi Order places on people (and those demands should have been depicted as inhuman and impossible to live up to, while also necessary to keeping Force users from becoming dangerous, instead of just assuming the audience should accept the whole freakish situation) and did his best to help Anakin accept this impossible, absurd lifestyle that had been imposed on both of them when they were far too young to know what they were getting themselves into, because it was expected of them, and because the alternatives were worse.
There was really no excuse for either of those characters being so botched, but Anakin maybe is more forgivable because it's rare to see a hero that successfully transitions to an epic sort of villainy - it's rarely even tried. It would have been amazing to see it pulled off successfully.
Good counterexamples, and interesting how you picked adjectives that on their own, and not piled on top of each other faults, can define a good hero. Luke whines but he has a good heart and tries hard. Kirk is pompous but he's a fine leader, he cares about his people, and has enough self-doubt and introspection to neutralize the pomposity before it turns him into an object of derision.
Since Anakin isn't really a "hero," he shouldn't have just one innocuous fault. He should have one fatal fault. And by keeping it to one - the one that will cause his fall - we can have him be heroic for two movies and most of the third without it being too implausible. My pick for the fatal fault is lust for power, because it's consistent with Vader's behavior and not inconsistent with a whole slew of heroic virtues - courage, resourcefulness, intelligence, self-confidence, etc. That's why "loving Padme too much" (blech) or fearfulness in general just doesn't work as the fatal fault.
As for Obi-Wan, he should have been a decent, kind-hearted guy who sacrificed his whole life to the inhuman demands that the Jedi Order places on people (and those demands should have been depicted as inhuman and impossible to live up to, while also necessary to keeping Force users from becoming dangerous, instead of just assuming the audience should accept the whole freakish situation) and did his best to help Anakin accept this impossible, absurd lifestyle that had been imposed on both of them when they were far too young to know what they were getting themselves into, because it was expected of them, and because the alternatives were worse.
There was really no excuse for either of those characters being so botched, but Anakin maybe is more forgivable because it's rare to see a hero that successfully transitions to an epic sort of villainy - it's rarely even tried. It would have been amazing to see it pulled off successfully.
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Jaws is also a great example of how to use special effects and how a villain can be excellent without even having any dialog. Keeping the shark obscured and limiting its screen time not only helped make it an effective villain, but also hid the fact that it was just machinery.
Jaws, like T-1000 and Michael Myers in the first Halloween movie, also shows us how a villain that is mostly force and very little personality can be just as captivating as a talkative one.
Myers is just a mute guy in a mask, but I think the way he's kept out of sight for so much of the movie and the way all of his actions are so stylishly and subtly shot and acted made him one of the greatest villains.
This 1978 Halloween is also a good example of what an asset a hero with a strong personality can be to a movie's villain. Dr. Loomis builds Myers up verbally and expresses such fear and concern that he simultaneously establishes himself as a fascinatingly intense and chivalrous person while making sure the villain is a powerful presence in the movie even when it's not around.
It seems, to me at least, that the Batman universe does the opposite.
I find the villains MUCH more interesting than our hero.
And, especially with the Joker, Tim Burton and Chris Nolan appear to agree.
I find the villains MUCH more interesting than our hero.
And, especially with the Joker, Tim Burton and Chris Nolan appear to agree.
M
Matthewop
Guest
I also think villains is more interesting. But other charactors are good too...
The difference is, I think Nolan was really trying to make Batman just as interesting and important as the villains in his movies. He wasn't completely successful, but I can certainly see a lot more effort than in the Burton movies, where way more screen time and dialog was devoted to getting to know and understand who the villains are.
That's the problem with comic book heroes. They are only as good as their villains are. Imagine The Dark Knight if the Joker totally sucked.
Not necessarily. I thought Spider-Man was at least as good as his villains in the first two Spider-Man movies. Same with Superman in his first two movies.
Dukat shows the dangers here, though. They had such a compelling villain that the temptation was always to have him turn good (they had several places where they were leaning towards painting him as misunderstood). Then Ira Behr put his foot down and said "No, this guy is as bad as Hitler." Many people feel they made Dukat one-dimensional in the last few episodes of the series. I think part of it was a fear that Dukat could overshadow the good guys.
Make the villain this huge, ominous, shadowy figure, looming behind his legions of evildoers. Don't spend any time on his secret plans or motivations, or backstory. Just kind of do it like Bowser in Super Mario Bros. (the game, not the horrendous movie) and you'll never have to worry about the villain... although that might be kind of ultra-downsizing him.
I never understood the complaint that Dukat became one dimensional. Everything he did after his break with reality seemed to flow naturally from who he was beforehand.
And it's not like he was doing things just for the sake of being evil - he had motivations, like revenge. But even then, he also truly believed he was doing was right, as he became a true believer in the Pah-Wraiths.
