Villains We Love To Hate

This post first appeared on my former blog December 5, 2010.

Come on, you’ve got one.  Who is it?

Cruella de Vil?

Lex Luther?

The Wicked Witch of the West?

Voldemort?

Great stories often require great villains.  Without them, our heroes cannot be truly heroic.  They provide the force we long to see our hero overcome.

But great villains can’t just be evil.  We need to understand them.  Frighteningly, we often need to empathize with them.  In 1989’s Batman, brought to life by Tim Burton, The Joker was given a more complete back story.  We experienced his pain, and while we may not have agreed with his evil deeds, we understood where they came from.

Still, we cheered for Batman as he defeated this villain.  Wiping such negativity from the earth is something that resonates with many of us.

I was taught that to increase the impact of my hero and his/her success, I had to first increase the impact of the villain and his/her nefarious deeds.  The more dangerous a villain, the more heroic the hero.  That’s why Greek heroes defeated the Minotaur, the Gorgon, the Cyclops and others.

I was also taught that every great villain is the hero of his/her own story.  So, as a writer, I often try to approach my villain with the idea that he truly believes what he wants to achieve is good—at least for him. And like any hero, he’s frustrated by others who cross him.  To the villain, the hero is someone who must be defeated for the good of all.

And recently I learned a great term: contagonist. We all think of the villain as an antagonist—someone who is in direct opposition with the hero.  But sometimes, the person we perceive as blocking the hero doesn’t have villainous intentions.  He may merely be on his own path, which somehow intersects and interferes with the hero.  This is a contagonist.  A find them fascinating.

Then, of course, there were the Gothic heroes–the brooding silent men who watched over heroines.  The heroine never knew whether this man was a protector or a danger to her.  In Hitchcock’s Suspicion, Cary Grant played this a modern twist on this icon. If you’ve never seen the film, by all means, watch it and decide for yourself whether he’s a villain or a Gothic hero.

Okay, so my favorite villains?

Scariest childhood villain:  The Wicked Witch, hands down.  As a kid, she terrified me. And those flying monkeys?  <shudder>

Most annoying childhood villain:  Nellie Oleson from The Little House books.  Arggh, she drove me crazy! (And yet, now I’m following actress Alison Arngrim on Twitter, go figure…)

Scariest adult villain: the Alien in Aliens.  Though I covered my eyes for half the film, I loved watching Sigourney Weaver kick that thing’s ass.

Most annoying adult villain:  Dr. Smith from the Lost in Space series.

Creepiest villain:  Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca.  Not even Laurence Olivier could convince me to sleep under the same roof as that woman.

Villain I most wanted to see redeemed:  The Terminator. Oh wait, they did redeem him for Terminator 2!  Okay, okay, how about Hannibal Lechter.  I mean, the man is brilliant–twisted, but brilliant!

Who is your favorite villain and why?  Is it someone you love to hate?  Someone you wish you could redeem?  Someone who makes a hero jump off the page (or screen) for you by pushing the hero’s limits?