Welcome to day one of the A to Z challenge. My theme is complex villains, with a focus on those characteristics that allows us a twinge of empathy, to see their human side, even as we hate them.

Great villains have a combination of key attributes.

  1. They are charismatic, able to get folks to follow them, through some extreme carrot-stick combination. At times its a negative charisma, or an aura that only appeals to some (e.g. Voldemort) but they use their power to motivates others to action.  They offer a form of loyalty to their followers.
  2. They teeter on the fence between genius and madness (Hannibal Lecter).
  3. They don’t see themselves as villains but as saviors or visionaries. (Loki)
  4. They carry deep pain and are driven in part by negative emotions like anger and vengeance. That pain and anger twists their vision of what the world and the future should look like (Magneto)

Not all villains have all five, and there are definitely some great loners (Gollum) and those that fall into categories of their own (Hal from 2001), but you’ll see variations of these as we explore villains together over the month of April.

I’d like to kick off the challenge by introducing a villain of my own creation.  Amaris is a wildling fae in my Shifting Alliance Series, introduced in Book 2, Unnatural Allies which will release late April or May from Evernight Publishing.

Credit: MistyBeee

While faerie folk are usually attached to a Court, wildlings live outside them. Consequently, they tend to be more feral and more finely integrated with nature, thus vulnerable to any environmental shifts.  The health of the world is tied to the health of the fae.  Its a version of the Gaia theory.

In the book, as the physical world degrades (e.g. polluted water and air), it drags Amaris down with it. She is going mad, and wants to stop the degradation, for herself and her children. And its this one-minded drive to fix things in her own image, that leads her astray.

Sometimes its easier to show complexity in a character, than to describe it.  Here’s a snippet from my draft of Unnatural Allies (still being edited).  In this scene, Amaris has tied up our hero Evan (his POV), the rat shifter alpha. Zip, a male faerie the size of a dragonfly with the tendency to repeat himself, is racing around the room. The first line of the scene is his. The remaining banter is between Evan and Amaris. Enjoy.

“Only one reason, one reason. Glamour can’t beat love magic, love magic.”

“Can you turn off his auto-repeat button?” Evan asked. He felt stuck in a horrific abstract painting, where nothing made sense to a sane person. Whatever was going on with the fae, it wasn’t organized, and it wasn’t rational. His rat gnawed at his skin, yelping to get out.

“Can you stop the iron collecting in the water?”

This is getting more surreal by the moment.  “What are you talking about?”

“Toxin build-up of course. The fae are tied to the elements. If the earth, the water or the air gets sick, so do we.  Zip is my son.” Her eyes blazed, her tone was defensive.

Sympathy pinched his heart. If he couldn’t condone her actions, he understood her anger. But a furious, insane mother fae was off the charts dangerous. He and Nicca had to get off here.

“The new sidhe in the unclaimed territories.” I guess they’re claimed now. “Are they your children too?”

“Cowards.”  The crop slammed against his thigh. He tasted blood on his lip, he bit down so hard to hold in the cry.

“They chose to hide, not fight.” She lifted the crop again.

As the scene reveals, she’s very protective of her children, but demands their ultimate loyalty. In that protectiveness, in her ability to feel her child’s pain, we see an Amaris who might have turned out okay if things had gone a different direction.  In that love, there might be a way to reach her.  That to me, is a great villain.

What characteristics do you think make villains great?

Want more?  Visit the other A to Z Challenge bloggers .

18 Replies to “Attributes of Great Villains, Introducing Amaris #atozchallenge”

    • Thanks, Toni. Amaris has a sidekick who is a winter fae, but the image of him in my mind is a drow elf. The fairy folk and the elves overlap to a degree in my mind. What do you think?

  • There definitely need to be a lot of subtleties that go into creating a great villain. I have to say, I like Amaris. It’s interesting when villains start off with good intentions but somehow that gets twisted into something dangerous.

    • I really like stories where the antagonist and protagonist are mirror images–maybe they grew up together, or shared the same experiences, but one goes bad. That comparative perspective can be really enriching.

  • Yeah, I find complex adversaries make stories so much more interesting. When they’re simply bad for no apparent reason, it’s rather boring!
    Happy A to Z! I look forward to seeing more of your posts this month. 🙂
    Tui
    My A to Z posts are here: TuiSnider.com

    • Totally agree. One dimensional badness is uninteresting. Although it can be scary like Michael Myers or Freddie Krueger, where there is no hope for redemption, only destruction will do.

  • Great villains like you mentioned aptly have a magnetic personality. They have a power and they assert control. I always feel ,the villain is created to make the hero look good .But standalone one may question the villain’s intent/ways but they are hard to ignore/ miss.

    • I agree totally. The villain drives the protagonist. The better the villain, the more interesting the protagonist.

  • Great post! I love villains. They’re so fascinating. I always try to give them one of those qualities in my own stories as well. Thank you for sharing!

    • I couldn’t agree more. They are driven by some dystopian vision, as if the world would be better, if you have to get rid of some (or most) of its inhabitants. We have feelings too sometimes on a lesser degree–our perception, ideas, ideology, etc… is the right and only one. Villains go overboard, remind us what happens when we get trapped in a single perspective, with a singular drive.

  • Her reasons for being villainous are noble enough that you have to wonder who the real villain is! I’d probably end up rooting for her lol
    Debbie

    • I agree. A good story has heroes/heroines with flaws and villains with humane characteristics, so at times, they are mirror images—one went wrong, the other found the courage to stay good.

    • Thank you, Bobbie. Glad you stopped by and hope you enjoy the A to Z blog Challenge.

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