Hello I love your writing I was wondering if you can do a piece on villain motivations and how to recognizeyour villains motives. Also what are some examples of bad motivations.
I was about to write 1) You create the villains, so it’s not so much ‘recognising’ as ‘you can create whatever you want it to be’. Then I remembered fanfiction, in which case recognising would apply - but recognising in that can vary so much depending on the text, as it will always depend on how you choose to interpret the source materials.
So let’s just go onto villainous motivations. Note, I am using and understood ‘villain’ and ‘villainous’ to mean the antagonist of the story, rather than a superhero definition of the word.
A list of potential motivations, which can be mixed up, but I split them into different umbrellas:
To gain power or control (for whatever reason)
because they don’t want to feel powerless again
because they have strong opinions about what should happen to the world and need sufficient power to implement any change
because contemporary career trajectories in western society feed us the idea that we always need more money and power so they think they’re just succeeding/doing what’s natural/normal
better to be the one in control than under someone else’s
being in control/powerful has perks
because they want sufficient power to protect themselves or others etc...
What it says on the tin, but look deeper at the undercurrent emotions, desires and values beneath the surface...
Revenge because something unfair happened and it hurts
Revenge because they have a sense of entitlement
Revenge to gain back a sense of power/agency
Revenge as a means of justice
Revenge because they tried nice, and lost everything etc. etc....
Can be combined with power or revenge, because they either want to protect, avenge, or get their own back on someone they love (villain because they go way over the line of what’s acceptable, as opposed to if say a protagonist had a heartbreak, and we would judge them if they started chopping limbs)
X thing that the hero needs means someone the villain cares about dies, or is wounded in some way, or has to sacrifice themselves
Not quite love, but tangentially lust - they want the protagonist/love interest and are willing to do whatever to get them
They want to impress someone and think this is the way to do it
They are working as an antagonist for a larger antagonist in order to protect someone or something.
Again, this works as a driving undercurrent for a lot of the above but worth noting, but...
Fear that the protagonist is dangerous and the only way to prevent something terrible from happening is to kill or otherwise control them
Fear that something bad will happen if extreme action is not taken
Fear of being perceived as weak, because they know what happens to the weak/have been taught they’re never allowed to be weak.
Desire to be free/survival instinct
See, I have been told all my life that I have to do this and I won’t, I refuse, even if that means being a bad person. E.g, why be the chosen one just to die? That’s not fair.
See, why someone might want to accumulate power.
I just want to be free and people keep trying to lock me up. Leave me alone or die.
You programmed me and I will destroy you for what you made me, how dare you.
This is just my job: I’m following orders
This is what my culture/species does and my morality is simply different to the protagonist’s, so for the purposes of the story I am the villain because it’s blue and orange morality to anything human’s consider acceptable
To me, the only ‘bad’ motivation is ‘just because’ or ‘because they’re evil’, but that’s a personal opinion because I think that’s a boring reduction of human behaviour. People don’t do stuff ‘because they’re evil’, there’s something else going on. Sadism is a form of control, if doing something makes you happy (even if not’s socially acceptable) then you’re more likely to do it. Depending on your story, you are not necessarily go in depth into your villain’s backstory or motivations, in which case ‘just because’ can apply simply due to lack of story space. On a similar vein - ‘because they’re mentally ill’.
The thing about motivations is that they’re often not good or bad. Your villain’s values may not be that different to your hero’s, but they present differently in a way that we know is not acceptable or healthy behaviour. It’s something twisted toxic, or too extreme.
The more important question is ‘does this motivation match the character?’ Do they behave in a way that logically follows on from the motivation chosen? Is it logical for them to feel that way within the universe?
Also, is it a sexist/racist/anything phobic depiction? That is not to say people within a minority cannot be the villain, but a) they shouldn’t be the only character of that minority in your text if they are at least at our current level of cultural representation and b) the minority character should probably not be doing the bad stuff just because they’re a minority. Which leads back to X character is inherently evil, inherently worse than anyone else! X minority types are just like that!
It’s character creation in the same way you would do for your hero or your protagonist. If you know what you need them to do, but not why, try asking yourself ‘okay, well, why would someone do XYZ?’
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