“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” - Harvey Dent from the Dark Knight

These words send ice through the veins of the audience as they realize the truth of this statement.

But what is a villain?

And what separates good villains from bad villains?

Why do those words petrify the readers in their seats?

Writers in recent years have flooded films and books with boring, uninteresting villains that most people dislike.

Naturally, the audience is more drawn to villains like Vader, the Joker, and President Snow, but why? This essay will not just discuss what a villain is, but what makes a good villain that draws readers in and sends chills down their spines. In fiction, villains are the core of the tension and the plot. A villain is an antagonist whose either actions or motives are evil and immoral. But a good villain must be more. A good villain must be morally lost and threatening.

The first key to a villain that the readers will both love and fear is making the villain morally lost. This can be in two ways. Either the villain must have evil motives or his or her actions must be evil, even if they are trying to do the right thing. Everyone starts out good. We are born pure, in God’s image. However, experiences and choices shape us.

Take a look at Darth Vader. He started as a young boy, Anakin, who was very good and pure in heart, but was fearful of losing those he loved. As he grew older, he also grew angrier, lashing out in revenge when he lost loved ones. He also grows bitter towards the Jedi and his mentors, feeling they do not give him what he deserves. As this goes on, his fear and anger begin to control him, and he turns to hate. The once hero of the galaxy now slaughters children and betrays the Jedi. His desire now is not for peace or saving those he loves. Now he is a hollow monster filled with only hate and darkness.

This story drives deep into the audience the nature of how every person can give in to their darkness and become a monster. The emotional tension of knowing that the cold, dark lord of the Sith was once a good hero draws viewers into the story. Knowing now that he only wishes for power, revenge, and self-satisfaction makes him a masterful villain that we all both love and fear. Or, while it is usually much better if your villain seems realistic and relatable, he or she can be pure evil. The Joker from the Dark Knight simply wants to “watch the world burn.” This ruthlessness and pure evil makes him terrifying, knowing he has no humanity, no good in him.

These villains are harder to do but, if crafted well, can be done.

However, a villain’s motives don’t have to be evil to make him or her a villain. Many of the greatest villains are trying to do the right thing, but their avenue to achieve their goal is what is immoral. Take “Ratman” from the Maze Runner books. His goal is to provide a cure to a deadly disease, driving humanity to ruin. However, in an experiment to find this cure, he experiments and kills teenagers and kids. His actions seem evil to these characters, but he argues that the means justify the ends. This throws the book into turmoil, making the readers ask themselves who the good guys really are. The teenagers trying to escape, or Ratman? It creates a dilemma that will suck any reader into the story.

This can make a villain much more interesting and sometimes likable because were it not for their actions, they would be a good guy. However, the villain must still be stopped, not because of what they are trying to do but how they are trying to do it.

Either way, perhaps the most important key to a villain is making them morally lost in some way.

However, being morally lost is only half of the ingredients needed for a good villain. They must also be threatening. There are many ways to do this. One is to give them an aura of mystery and perhaps mystical powers that the hero doesn’t know how to beat.

One good example of this is Darth Vader. As the chosen one, he is the most powerful force wielder, not to mention his menacing presence.

Or there’s the Lord Ruler from the Mistborn books. He barely has any actual page time but he has this essence of mystery where there’s so little knowledge about him that he’s creepy. Also no one knows how to beat him. He’s portrayed as invincible until the end of the book when the hero finds the only way.

Another idea might be to make them physically powerful.

A good example is Angor Rot from Trollhunters. He’s a fast, strong, skilled, stone troll. No-one can outfight him. Or there’s Bane from the Dark Knight Rises. He’s physically strong and a good fighter. If the hero was to fight the villain the hero would get absolutly cooked.

This is a great aspect but it is even better when paired with another. Another threatening aspect is one of manipulation. Take a villain like President Snow from The Hunger Games that are physically weak but gain their power by manipulating and controlling others. Snow pulls strings to get every character to do exactly what he wants and he does this by apealing to their emotions. He uses Peeta to break Katniss’s spirit and keep her from rallying the rebels. He manipulated himself into his position of power. This makes any reader’s skin crawl as they wonder if the heroes would be able to see through his schemes and deception.

There is however another aspect of a threatening villain. This is one of the most underused aspects of a terrifying villain. Simple wit.

Viggo Grimborn is a villain from the Dragons Race to the Edge series who viewers love. This is for one major reason. Viggo Grimborn is so much smarter than the protagonists. At every turn, Viggo is outthinking the heroes, always several steps ahead. Hiccup, the protagonist, can almost never win against Viggo. This makes readers genuinely engaged in the story because the odds are so great against the hero. The villain is always winning. How could the hero possibly win? The stakes are much higher and therefore your book will also be so much better.

So, the other half of the recipe of a good villain is making them genuinely threatening and more powerful in some way than the heroes. This creates tension, which is what readers and viewers want in a story.

The villain is usually the biggest conflict in a story. And while stories with no villains can certainly have tension, the conflict is almost always much higher in stories that do. The villain is vital to the story, arguably even more important than the hero. The antagonist is the core of the conflict. Without this conflict, every story will fall flat, quickly becoming boring. Therefore, the quality of the villain is directly proportional to the quality of the story. So, if you want to write a good book, write better antagonists and improve the quality of villains to make them threatening, morally lost people that reflect the dangers of darkness within us.