A Villian's Motive

In my struggle to understand the villian of the story I found a great website that is helping me get a better grip on the villians in the Remmington Pirates books.

Here are my notes on VILLIAN MOTIVATION:

“Good villains think their actions are justified. They think they’re doing what’s right.” (Mike Shea)

FIGHTING FOR THE PACK – fighting for the flag, the religion, skin colour, the tribe, the empire, undead might for death against life – Their way is the RIGHT way, the ONLY way and will fight to the death over it.

THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS – we build laws around ideals. Sometimes, in order to protect those laws, we must break them. – Sometimes we must do evil in order to protect good, which is the flawed philosophy of many villains – Consider the wizard must call on the undead and make pacts with evil to save his city – Consider the paladin who must slay a child prophesied to open up the gates of hell – Consider the lover who must use any power he can to bring back his lost love. – The end justifies the means and drives good people to perform evil deeds.

WANTING TO SEE THE WORLD BURN – Sometimes the world has become so twisted, so broken, that only a clean slate will save it. – Like the forest fires that feed the future lives of the Sequoia tree, sometimes the only way to bring new life to a world is to the world burn. – Perhaps it is the furthest form of vengeance, where all life must pay for a single horrible incident.

ROMANCE – villains frequently have ulterior motives – like marrying to steal the nuclear power plant she inherited – improper means (like sabotaging rivals) – OR true romances  

REVENGE – a villain getting back at the love interest that rejected him – revenge might be heroic if the crime is particularly heinous and/or the regular authorities are not willing or able to resolve the situation – it might be villainous if the character is overreacting or not being careful enough about hitting only the people responsible. – It’s more interesting if the revenge develops into something more than just killing/stopping people A, B, and C.

TO DISTINGUISH ONESELF – it depends on why the character wants to distinguish himself – being true to yourself, unless being true to yourself involves physically decapitating people and sucking out their brains.

TO FIT IN/GAIN ACCEPTANCE – wants to impress someone and/or people

JUSTICE – is like revenge, but usually less lethal and targeted more carefully against the perpetrators. Nonetheless, justice can sometimes be villainous (like the main goal of the robot antagonist in "I Robot" is to prevent humans from getting hurt, and they think that putting human under house arrest is the most logical way to do so.)

GREED – maybe the character is hoarding something (money, power, remote-control ninja stars) on behalf of somebody else. – let antiheroes go all the way in being greedy

FEAR – maybe Lex Luthor is correct that Superman will eventually turn on us – fearful villains/heroes usually perceive threats that are current rather than potential, but they may be paranoid wrecks anyway.

DESPERATION – a desperate character can’t back away from the plot. He can’t escape the conflict. (While a greedy character is usually driven by stupidity – stupidity is the only reason he can’t be satisfied with what he has)

SOCIAL COHESION – means keeping the family together, or significant racial group or class-based conflict (like X-Men)

A DESIRE TO BETTER ONESELF – depending what character is trying to change about himself – Here’s a thought for your hero, is he trying to change anything about himself besides becoming more powerful? What about the villain? – the villain’s desire for self-improvement or self-advancement more sinisterly could get other people hurt

A DESIRE TO BETTER HUMANITY AND/OR SOCIETY – altruistic villain – unselfish – belief in acting for others’ good

CURIOSITY/SEARCH FOR KNOWLEDGE – a hero searching for understanding may be an amnesiac, some sort of wanderer – a villain is probably uncovering secrets better left untouched, although his intensions may have been pure – an eventual villain might go on an innocuous search for understanding but come away with exactly the wrong lessons from life.

A DESIRE TO GAIN POWER TO ACHIEVE A GOAL – like the villain is a time-traveller that knows of a some grave threat, so he’s trying to take over the world because he’s the only one that knows how to avert disaster. If alien invasion starts in 20 years, he doesn’t have very much time to unite the Earth (A sequel would be hero stops the villain at end of book but discovers he has to defeat impending alien invasion.)

TO ESCAPE ONE’S DESTINY – a super-villain is usually born into a decidedly mundane and powerless family – another type of escaping destiny is fighting with one’s parents and/or dealing with stereotypes

TO ACHIEVE ONE’S DESTINY –the villain might be born under a rare astrological sign, the subject of a great prophecy, the heir to an ancient and illustrious organization, etc.