How to make a bad guy

1. Motivation

2. Methods

3. Style

Those are the three key aspects needed to make a villain noteworthy. You don't need all three to be memorable, but they're all things that contribute to changing a villain from 'the bad guy' to 'an ultimate evil'.

1. Motivation
In this aspect, there are three different possibilities.

• A) Greed
• B) "I'm the good guy"
• C) Insanity

Those are the three different ways a villain can be motivated into his actions. Greed is easy enough, it's the villain in Die Hard and the Italian Job, he or she is the person who just wants power/money and will go to any length to get it. Greed can even be Darth Vader from Star Wars, who fell to the dark side out of desire for more power (among with other things)

B is one that's both under-considered and a little over-represented nowdays. Everyone thinks they need a villain who the audience can understand the motivations of, and who genuinely thinks they're doing the right thing. Magneto is a classical example, he believes all his actions are for the good of 'his people'.

Insanity is something not often used, since it results in a villain who just genuinely cannot be sympathised with or understood. When done poorly it results in a shamble of what should be a character. When done well it's incredible though, resulting in the Joker, Hannibal Lector, and some of the most memorable villains around. It's a risky motivation, as it results in a character who can never, ever be sympathised with, and locks the writer into trying to make him a villain people see and go "... He was AWESOME."

2. Methods

One of the easiest ways to achieve a villain is to give them a noble goal, and remove any methodic constraints. Swordfish, John Travolta did have a 'noble' end goal in its own insane way, which was to protect his country, the way he became the villain is in the methods he used.

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This, ladies and gentlemen, is why "The ends justifies the means" is bull. Say your end goal is to save lives, you're a doctor working in a hospital, and a reasonably healthy patient checks in, he's just got a rash from an allergic reaction, no family, but he himself is a nice guy, innocent of any crime. If you slit his throat and divided his organs amongst the sick who needed transplants, you could save a dozen lives. The end result of that is "saving a dozen lives", but could the means really be seen - in any universe - as a good thing? I do not think so. The means always requires justification on their own merit. I might do a more in-depth post about this sometime, but for now back to writing.

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So, the methods in use can turn a hero to a villain. At the same time they can always be used to simply enhance his villainous status (although this does tresspass somewhat into point 3). Look at Hannibal Lector, his methods most certainly made him even more memorable as a villain.

One of my favourite villains around is from 'Serenity', the Operative. He had noble ideals, and while his methods were pretty rough (nerve-hitting someone then letting them fall upon his sword) he had a certain.. honour to him. He was a good man who had invested all he was into a flawed ideal, only he could not see the flaw.

Other methods that can be memorable (which also tresspass somewhat into style) can be gimmicky, or possibly a form of honour. Two face and his coin-flipping is gimmicky, but adds something to the villain that makes him stand out. Giving the villains a form of honour (such as the Predator only killing armed people, and refusing to kill a pregnant woman) can also make them stand out and be more appealing.

3. Style

This one I was looking forward to writing about. Style. It's what elevates Jason the hockey-mask-wearing-slasher from a thug with a knife. Give Darth Vader a pink tutu and he would have to force chock every officer in the Imperial Navy because they would all snicker at him.

Style elevates someone from a 'bad guy' into a 'villain'. Hannibal Lector had immeasurable style, class and elan, which just made his desire to eat your face all the creepier. Style also covers gimmicks, things that make a character stand out. Recall the villain in 'No country for old men' (who's name I can't spell), he had a couple of gimmicks that were so understated at no point did you doubt they could be real, despite how outlandish it all was (killing people based on a coin flip, using a air-gun designed for killing cattle to kill people? If I told you that in conversation you'd laugh. If you saw him do it, you'd crap yourself).

Style can be something incredibly understated that makes the villain feel... almost wrong, but oh-so-right. Without his undefinable brand of lunacy and style, the Joker would just be a creep with a bad sense of humour. Remove Darth Vaders deep breathing and imposing costume, and he's a wanker with a laser sword who doesn't like people talking bad about the force.

You may have noticed alot of the examples I used were comic book in nature. This is, quite simply, because no one does villains like comic books. That may be my next post, why comic books are so unique.