What Makes a Bad Guy Good? A comprehensive look at the best ingredients for a compelling villain
as seven years old when Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire hit shelves. Though I was old enough to read the book independently I sat with my aunt for hours at a time while she read the story aloud. It was our tradition, going back to the first book.
Harry Potter fans know that Goblet of Fire marks a thematic transition to the series. Where the first three volumes tread safely in Middle-Grade territory, book four is the first to venture into the decidedly more dangerous world of Young Adult literature.
I still remember the fear I felt when Voldemort came back to life in the third act. His return is christened with the first on-page death in the series. My heart sank as Cedric Digory fell lifeless to the ground.
It wasn’t that I liked him as a character. He’d been Harry’s rival for much of the book and I’d just spent the last 450 pages rooting against him.
And yet his death marked a loss of innocence—not just for Harry but for myself. The story that meant so much to me had changed irrevocably, and a small part of me changed with it.
Voldemort frightened me in a way that I found embarrassing and shameful. I was conspicuously quiet when I returned home from my aunt’s house.
My mom probed delicately trying to get to the heart of the matter. I told her nothing was wrong. Then I burst into tears on her bed—casting doubt on my earlier statement.
Possibly, only children can access that level of emotion for a story. Adults can’t walk around wrecked by the book they read before bed.
Still, that moment stands out to me. As a writer and lifelong devotee of books, I can’t imagine a more successful villain introduction.
Excellent stories need compelling villains. But how do they get them? In this article, we provide a sweeping overview of what ingredients are required to make a bad guy good.
They Killed Your Parents
Voldemort isn’t the only Big Bad who likes to make orphans. Think Claudius in Hamlet. Scar (who is, admittedly, a Claudius avatar) in The Lion King. Billy Lumis in Scream. Count Rugen in The Princess Bride. The Winter Soldier in Captain America Civil War.
Why is this trope so pervasive? Heroes need a personal stake in the story. The desire to do something good isn’t always a compelling enough motivation. As the story’s spectator, we don’t simply want a happy ending—we want a nice emotional payoff.
Think about the graveyard scene in Goblet of Fire. When Harry chooses to step out from behind the tombstone and fight, he isn’t just staring down a big meenie. He’s deciding to fight the man who took EVERYTHING from him.
The stakes are so much higher than if Voldemort was simply wizard Hitler with no substantial ties to our hero.
But Also—The Villain Might Be Your Father
When Darth Vader made it very hard for Luke to buy gloves at the end of Empire, he was participating in a much older literary trope than the Dark Lord of the Sith likely realized. While the “I am your father,” reveal is very Star Wars-specific, it’s ultimately just a splashy installment in a very old story.
A hero has to confront the idea that their mentor or inspiration is deeply flawed, or even evil. Think of Jack Torrence wielding the roque mallet. Harry learning that Dumbledore groomed him for death.
The parent or mentor turned antagonist externalizes the hero's insecurity. It forces them to reconsider their assumptions and test the durability of their values. When they ultimately decide to do the right thing, their heroic triumph has that much more weight to it.
Stephen King wrote a sequel to The Shining, titled Doctor Sleep, which essentially explores this exact concept. Following his winter at the Overlook, Danny Torrence grows up to confront his father’s legacy of rage and addiction.
Can he do what Jack couldn’t?
That’s the dramatic question every mentor turned villain forces the hero to ask themselves.
They’re Just Like You
The “Evil Twin,” or “Mirror Image,” villain trope is not about heredity. It’s about throwing a hero up against someone who is almost their exact counterpart. Jekyll and Hyde is a very on-the-nose version of this story structure.
The main protagonist is very literally pitted against an externalized version of his worst impulses. Dorian Grey is in the same ballpark. We get an external version of the main character’s worst qualities.
However, the “Mirror Image,” concept doesn’t have to be so literal. Superhero stories are particularly prone to pitting protagonists up against a meanie-bo-beanie version of themselves.
Think of the first Iron Man movie. Black Panther. Batman Begins.
In all three stories, our hero goes up against a villain with approximately the same physical abilities as them.
Batman Begins also plays into the mentor-turned-villain trope, which is appropriate. Evil-twins and mentors-turned-villains aren’t identical but they do live in the same neighborhood. That’s a street you’ll want to stay away from.
They See Themselves as the Hero
Hey, we’re all the heroes of our own story, right? The Tragic Villain trope is as old as the written word. Satan himself, in the Christian tradition, is a Tragic Villain. Please don’t get angry about sacrilege. Obviously, I share your exact religious and political beliefs.
The Tragic Villain is simply an antagonist who is motivated by what they think is right. Javert in Les Miserables. Ozymandias in Watchmen. Walter White in Breaking Bad.
Tragic villains complicate the reader’s experience challenging our assumptions about right and wrong. They also create difficulty for the protagonist. It’s hard to thwart someone who is ultimately trying to be good. Particularly when…
They Might Be Right
Villains don’t have to be wrong. They don’t even have to be ignoble. They just have to antagonize our hero. Javert of Les Miserables is a good example. Javert is simply a police officer. When he tries to bring in Jean Valjean, he’s only doing his job.
Then there is Thanos. His plan is obviously insane, but not baseless. He has a clear hypothesis: There will be less suffering in the galaxy if there are more resources to go around.
His theory is supported by evidence: We learn that his own world crumbled due to overpopulation.
He has a clear method. Thanos never aspires to excessive cruelty, choosing a method of depopulation that was designed to minimize the risk of fear or suffering experienced by the victims of “The Snap.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean he is right. It just means he stands for something more substantial than your boilerplate Big Bad. Anyone who goes against Thanos is fighting more than just a big muscly purple guy. They are battling against an idea.
Which leads very nicely into our next point…
Or Maybe They’re Just a Metaphor
What could be more classic than a villain who stands for nothing more than wrongdoing? Voldermort is a good example of the “Card Carrying Villain,” trope. Big Bads with no redeeming qualities or even recognizable motivations.
In Harry Potter, we learn that Voldemort is very literally incapable of love or empathy. His rage-fueled actions are not easily understood by emotionally well-adjusted people. Rather than being the product of “One Bad Day” (the storytelling convention that normal people are just one set of bad circumstances away from a life of crime) he serves as a more symbolic interpretation of evil.
He is a physical embodiment of Wrong that most readers will be able to recognize. Harry’s job is to thwart that evil, thus completing the Heroes' Journey that has existed for as long as storytelling.
The Dark Knight takes the concept of the symbolic good/bad dichotomy one step further. Throughout the film, we see that the Joker has been cast as a physical embodiment of Anarchy.
Batman is Order.
When the Joker claims that their conflict is the byproduct of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object he is being very literal. Both men represent concepts that will not bend or flex regardless of circumstance.
This concept is hammered home at the end of the film when Batman realizes that the Joker’s plan was ultimately successful. Though captured, he’d managed to turn Harvey Dent into Twoface.
Dent had been a symbol of justice. If he was revealed as a villain it would not only compromise his accomplishments but sour Gotham’s notion of hope.
Batman and Commissioner Gordan formally recognize the metaphorical value of good versus evil by changing the story. They agree to cast Batman as the killer.
The film ends with a line that drives this point home quite brilliantly.
“He's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight.”
Stories matter. We use them as a way of interpreting our real-life experiences. The fictional people of Gotham are ultimately using Batman the same way members of the audience are. He and his villains are not real people but analogs for abstract notions that are difficult to process without context.
Ok, that’s enough out of me, I think. Did you like what you read? If so, by the hero I need. Like this post, leave me a comment. Subscribe to the blog. Share the website with a friend. Name your dog after me?