![]() ![]() If the characters already think they’re going to die, finding out that the villain will desecrate their corpses afterward doesn’t raise the stakes it just makes the villain seem like a dick.Īlternatively, villains will sometimes engage in pointless evil because the storyteller needs to communicate that the villain is bad, but there isn’t anything plot relevant for them to do yet. But this method has quickly diminishing returns. If the heroes find out that the villain is going to kill them rather than imprison them, that raises the stakes. The most common reason I’ve found is that authors believe they can actually increase the villain’s threat level by making them act cruelly, and there is a tiny bit of truth to that. At the same time, being pointlessly cruel can actually reduce a villain’s threat level, as it makes them seem incompetent. We know that most people don’t act like cartoon characters, and an over-the-top villain often makes a story seem far less credible. Not only is this clichéd, but in most stories it damages the audience’s suspension of disbelief. ![]() These villains are being pointlessly cruel. It’s all truly horrific, but there doesn’t seem to be any purpose to it. They’ll kick puppies, twirl their mustaches, and force prisoners to watch the odd-numbered Star Trek movies. Villains are generally bad people – that’s part of the job – but sometimes they go to ridiculous extremes to show you just how bad they are. Pointless Cruelty Kingpin kills an underling he really should have left alive because he’s EVIL. If you fix these issues early, you can save a lot of time and money when the hour for editing arrives.ġ. Since depicting villains can be especially difficult for new writers, I see a lot of these in my capacity as a content editor, and I’d like to share them with you. If a villain goes wrong, they often drag the entire story down with them, and there are many ways for villains to go wrong. The villain is usually the second most important character, behind only the protagonist themself. A good villain is critical for most stories.
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