Villains
I know people sometimes read horrible things in books and become appalled. I recall hearing how Stephen King has gotten hate mail for years about a scene in The Dead Zone where Greg Stillson kills a dog while trying to sell bibles. It's a rough scene, but Stillson does other terrible acts throughout that novel, but none hit that same emotional edge as when he kills that dog.
I recall also how in Critical Space, Greg Rucka uses the assassin Oxford to kill several long-time characters, one with calculated and false sexual overtones, another with cold, fast precision. A lot of Atticus Kodiak fans have problems with Critical Space, especially given his entanglements with the villain of Smoker, Drama.
Of course when people think of great villains, they like to bring up Hannibal Lecter or Darth Vader. These are great bad guys, but they are more dark shadows of ourselves, each showing different levels of charisma. In a lot of ways, these guys are known more for their charisma than for the horrible acts they play out. (Both Lecter and Vader do their most awful deeds off screen.)
I bring these thoughts up because I've been working on a way to get more use out of Delilah (Bridgett's best friend) in Vitamin F. The only flaw in doing this, is that I have to immerse myself in writing horrible acts, terrorists torturing and coercing people to achieve a desired effect. In a lot of ways, I'm doing this because I need the audience to hate Adam John and the Brotherhood of Life. But to hate them, they have to do the most vile things possible, with total disregard of any opinions other than their own.
Villains have to do horrible, terrible things to truly be worthwhile.
I recall also how in Critical Space, Greg Rucka uses the assassin Oxford to kill several long-time characters, one with calculated and false sexual overtones, another with cold, fast precision. A lot of Atticus Kodiak fans have problems with Critical Space, especially given his entanglements with the villain of Smoker, Drama.
Of course when people think of great villains, they like to bring up Hannibal Lecter or Darth Vader. These are great bad guys, but they are more dark shadows of ourselves, each showing different levels of charisma. In a lot of ways, these guys are known more for their charisma than for the horrible acts they play out. (Both Lecter and Vader do their most awful deeds off screen.)
I bring these thoughts up because I've been working on a way to get more use out of Delilah (Bridgett's best friend) in Vitamin F. The only flaw in doing this, is that I have to immerse myself in writing horrible acts, terrorists torturing and coercing people to achieve a desired effect. In a lot of ways, I'm doing this because I need the audience to hate Adam John and the Brotherhood of Life. But to hate them, they have to do the most vile things possible, with total disregard of any opinions other than their own.
Villains have to do horrible, terrible things to truly be worthwhile.
Labels: Commanding Thoughts
posted by LEN! at 1:51 AM
2 Comments:
How would a villain being someone the audience can relate to affect that? Like you say, Vader has that charisma, but eventually we see his struggle with himself, between following Palpatine/killing him and taking over (and dragging his son along with him), or he could try and trust his kid, turn against Palpatine, but not try and rule things himself.
Say the villain does really horrible things which do appall the audience, but we're privy to their thoughts, so we can see why they think this is appropriate, and so maybe we can see where they went awry.
Would that make their actions less horrible, because we think they're just confused and perhaps make excuses for them, or more, because the audience could expect the villain will see the light and then, surprise, the villain is too entrenched in the path they've chosen, and just keeps going on as they had been?
That's a fair point. Illustrating what the villain thinks/feels is probably a solid way to show where most people--good people--go one way and they go another.
Maybe that's why something like Battlestar really works. They don't shy away from making bad guys look like heroes and good guys look like villains.
I think the best resolution to what I've been doing is to just take a breath, look around, and point out the various details of what my villains are doing.
Post a Comment
<< Home