Satan
The villain who gave rise to all villains.
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| Satan falling. (Gustave Dore) |
Anyone who has read Paradise Lost will know that Satan gets all the best lines.
"All is not lost: the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else, not to be overcome."
At first glance, this could be the hero in his black moment. But look closely and you'll see revenge and hate hidden among the proclamations of courage. Satan's courage comes from his pride and his pride caused his downfall.
I will give my villain heroic qualities but twist these qualities so they feed into his villainy.
Count Fosco (The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins)
One of the greatest criminal masterminds of gothic fiction, Fosco is fiendishly clever, honourable in his own way and he possesses a charisma that even attracts the heroic Marian. In his final confession, he admits his adoration of Marian. Most of all, however, he adores himself. Right after confessing he would have committed murder if it had been necessary, he writes: "Is my conduct worthy of blame? Most emphatically no!"
This is a villain who truly believes himself to be a hero. He's in love with his own good qualities and believes himself incapable of any real vice.
My villain will be blind to her own faults.
Captain Hook (Peter Pan by J M Barrie)
Obviously I had to have a pirate in here. My own pirate villain, Marfak West, is still one of my own favourites.
What do I like best about Captain Hook? His evil laugh? His relentless pursuit of Peter Pan? No, the fact that he has lost a hand - a hand which was eaten by a crocodile which is still chasing him.
It's a well-known fact of fairytales that the monster must have a single weak point. Captain Hook's is the crocodile.
I will give my villain a fatal flaw that will be his undoing.
Cruella De Vil (The Hundred and One Dalmations by Dodie Smith)
Some books on writing say you should give your villain some good quality to show their humanity. Have them save a kitten, for example. Cruela de Vil drowns kittens and wants to skin puppies to make a fur coat. That's how evil she is.
My villain will demonstrate her true character in how she treats people (and animals).
Matilda's Parents (Matilda, Roal Dahl)
I know Miss Trunchbull is supposed to be the villain, but honestly every time I hear 'Put that book down and watch TV,' I quiver. Matilda's parents are her parents. They're supposed to love her, take pride in who she is and help her develop her potential. Instead they want to squash her down until she's an ugly little copy of themselves. At least they have the decency to let her go at the end.
My villains will not always be the obvious one.
I think I have enough inspiration to start writing now. I'm looking forward to meeting my next villain.
Which fiction villains have inspired you?
Claire Fayers is the author of the Accidental Pirates series, Mirror Magic and Storm Hound. Website www.clairefayers.com Twitter @clairefayers
3 comments:
Great post. Reading this made me realise one (of many) possible keys to Roald Dahl's success: his villains. Not just the parents in Matilda, but The Witches (in the same), Granny in George's Marvellous Medicine, the farmers in Danny, the Champion of the World. And more. It's 30 yeas since I read these books, but I STILL remember the villains.
Most memorable of (fairly) current books: the SS in Philip Kerr's 'The Winter Horses'. They're genuinely frightening.
An excellent post, learning from your favourite villains! I recently took a writing workshop at a secondary school in which I invited the kids to throw in their favourite villains. One of them said Thanos, from the Marvel universe. I was pleased with that one, because Thanos was a villain who very much saw himself as a hero. He believed in what he was doing, that wiping out half the population of the universe would improve life for the rest. Awful, but he was the hero of his own story. We discussed that - nobody, I said, wakes up in the morning saying “Ha ha, I’m going to be evil today!”
Which doesn’t make Sauron any less interesting as a villain in LOTR!
Now I think of it, one of my favourite villains is Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter. Despite being totally evil, she is believable - I have known and worked with a real life Umbridge.
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