My Favourite Villains by Claire Fayers

Following on from last month's post I am still pondering villains as I work on my new book. As I read around for inspiration, I thought it was time for another favourites list. This time, some of my favourite fictional villains, and what I've learned from them.

Satan

The villain who gave rise to all villains. 

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

In Search of Villainy, by Claire Fayers

I've been thinking a lot about villains this month.

I had the pleasure of meeting Rachel Leyshom, editor at Chicken House at the Cardiff Children's Literature Festival in May, and during our discussion for aspiring authors she said 'never underestimate the importance of your antagonist in driving the plot.'

Her words have returned to haunt me as I've struggled to put together an outline for what I hope will be my next book. I'm not a natural plotter, so outlines are my personal nemesis, and my villain (or lack of one) has become a big sticking point. Who is the villain? What do they want? Why?

Thanks to an extended bout of 'flu, I haven't seen Avengers: Endgame yet, but I already know I don't want a standard superhero film villain. I found Thanos a tad disappointing in his desire to destroy half of all life. All life? Even the animals? Even the insects? Even bacteria? What will Thanos do when the bacteria double in number again within a couple of seconds? Click his fingers again? And again?

No, generally I'm not a fan of superhero villains. I want to like them, but many seem to be the large, blustering types, who want to destroy or rule the world for no particular reason. Villains who can be defeated by hitting them very hard. There are some exceptions (Black Panther) but often I leave the cinema thinking the film could have been so much better if only the villain made better sense.

Stories begin with the villain. Many years ago, I was involved in a superhero role-playing campaign in which we decided that for a change we'd play the villains. This threw up an immediate storytelling problem. As heroes we'd generally wait for something bad to happen then jump in to stop it. As villains, we couldn't wait for something nice to happen and go and mess it up. We needed goals and a plan before the story even started. As the antagonists, we had to drive the story.

Possibly even more important that the plan is the villain's motivation. We can all imagine ourselves being brave and noble and doing the right thing so it's easy to understand the motivation of heroes, but why does someone turn to villainy?

But, as is often said, the villain is the hero of their own story, and so their motivation is not so different to the heroes'.

The Villain Who Fights For Right

Just like Iron Man, Captain America and all the rest, but on the opposite side. These villains are convinced they are in the right and no one is going to stop them. 

Take Javert from Les Miserables. His love of justice means he will pursue Valjean relentlessly, because he cannot bear to let a criminal go unpunished.

The Villain On a Quest

They might not even be a villain. They are pursuing a quest of their own and their goals just happen to conflict with the hero's.

This little one wants to play with paper balls then sleep on my chest. I want to write this blog post. Which of us is the villain here?

The Villain Who's Really a Sidekick

Darth Vader, Macbeth (at the start, at least), those weird disciples of the planet-eating demon in Dr Strange.

 I do wonder about them. It doesn't seem the brightest move to summon a demon whose goal is to destroy the world. It doesn't matter how much power your master gives you afterwards, you've still got nowhere to live.

At worst, these villains are glorified henchmen with little in the way of motive. At best, they have their own character arcs, act independently and make their own choices whilst serving the greater bad.

The Villain With a Secret Dark and Tormented Past

For every hero with a tragic past, there's a villain. Magneto from the X-Men, Killmonger from Black Panther, Sweeney Todd, Shakespeare's Prospero. They are driven by the same desires: revenge, justice, the desire to put things right.

These are my favourite villains because, of all the categories, they have the greatest capacity to change. They can take a step back, rethink, and become heroes instead. Sadly, they rarely do.

There are, I'm sure, many more categories, and villains are complex creatures and don't have to be confined to just one. Darth Vader is a sidekick villain with a tormented past who is on a quest to reclaim his son, because he thinks he's right.

I'm still not quite sure which way I'm going to go for my new book, but I have some ideas now.



Claire Fayers is the author of the Accidental Pirates duo, Mirror Magic and Storm Hound, all published by Macmillan Children's Books. Her villains are all terribly nice people really.

In defence of the super villain

On Monday, Nicholas Barber gave me pause for thought, in this Guardian piece, arguing that movie adaptations of childhood classics for young readers like Paddington or Postman Pat, are traducing the spirit of the original in one very specific way.

Villains. Really mean ones at that.

Mr Curry - the nearest thing in the Paddington books to a baddie

He recounts how the new Paddington adaptation from Harry Potter producer David Heyman has Nicole Kidman as murderous taxidermist, hellbent on peeling Paddington's hide. Postman Pat earlier this year had a megalomaniac cyberman, and we'd probably all rather not remember Dougal and co from the Magic Roundabout trying to stop an evil wizard.

Barber argues that the icy blast of cruelty, megalomania and high stakes jeopardy which comes whirling onto the screen with these inserted characters is a far remove from the gentle, charming storytelling which made the original books so popular with young children and their parents. He also gives a compelling example of his six year old daughter being squeamish at anything too scary in the movies - from sharks in Finding Nemo to evil queens in Snow White, never mind a psychopathic Nicole Kidman.

He is, of course, absolutely right on two fronts. Those characters are nothing to do with the world of the books. Paddington needs marmalade, not murderers, to bring him to life. And we all know, and quite possibly once were, young children who frighten very easily at any sign of on-screen darkness or scariness - especially, perhaps, if they weren't expecting it in such a warm and honey coloured world. Like finding a Heffalump when you really weren't expecting one....

But at the same time, these are all movies.

The books don't need those extra lashings of evil and drama. But once a book becomes adapted into a film, it becomes something else, not just a different medium but a different genre too. A genre with different rules and demands. A movie, even one for young children, requires big stories and big characters to fill the scree and sustain not only young minds but their adult minders for ninety minutes plus.

And I genuinely feel for his daughter. I remember being terrified by so much - Maleficent turning into a dragon in Sleeping Beauty or the horrific Garthim in Dark Crystal.

Gruesome Garthim

Somehow I seem to have survived it all, though, bar the odd nightmare. I think the key to these villains is that they are often as comic as they are villainous. Moreover, they can often be safely filed under the category of 'genre archetype' - even if unconsciously. Unlike the recent 'Missy' on Doctor Who - who I thought was brilliant but disturbingly vicious for a family show - evil queens, mad scientists, corrupt developers, emotionless robots - these caricatured characters have their roots in often quite non-scary cartoons and comics rather than any real life basis. (Ironically, the irritable next door neighbour as typified by Mr. Curry from the Paddington books is far more likely to be a real life concern for young children.)

I don't think your average child has met enough crazy taxidermists to be truly checking under the bed for them, and witches and wizards really can be safely banished to fairytale land. In fact, these comic book denizens are by and large safe ways to introduce young children to flashes of the dark side of human nature, without creating undue anxiety or fear.

They almost all meet grizzly and overblown ends too, which is part of the panto fun.

Barber is right that not every child's narrative needs these big bullies, certainly not every book or TV programme. Children's stories may be one of the best ways to address grief and pain for developing minds; that of course doesn't make them obliged to.

But to keep small ones focused and not wriggly in the cinema, I can think of few better ways than a larger than life baddie with arched eyebrows and a maniacal laugh, coming after the young and innocent hero of the hour.

Piers "Cruella de" Torday
@PiersTorday
www.pierstorday.co.uk