On Villains

Here is my thinking: Villains are not villains because they were born to be evil / forced to become evil. Or, at least, not all are.

Not all villains are even evil, but there is something about them we need to be the "bad guy."

People have different thought patterns, chemical makeup, etc. There are psychological disorders behind people doing terrible things. Control issues, products of one's childhood and so forth.

Thus, there is room for a villain who does terrible things because they have sadistic tendencies, but I don't think every villain should be so for this reason. There can be more than one villain in a story. There can be more than one type of story written.

As intriguing as the character arc of the hero / heroine can be the character arc of the villain. A villain who does a terrible thing because they feel they must can be more sinister than a villain doing a terrible thing because they think it is fun. There is that added sense of urgency. That feeling of desperation. It isn't the same as a villain embarking on our equivalent of an exciting trip to Vegas.

A trip to Vegas could be just as fun as a trip to Atlantic City. The villain doing something they must does not have the option of going to Atlantic City. They have their ticket to Vegas in hand. One way. Once they get there, they have no time for the strip. Strictly a business trip.

There is something about that emotional stake to up the level of depravity in a villain. I don't mean they have to do something absolutely crazy and insane to be a villain (I don't know who this villain is, they might be the quiet, sneaky type). I mean their intentions should be believable.

In some ways, there can be layers to who the villain is as well. Our hero could be someone else's villain. Mr. Rochester keeping his insane wife locked up in the attic is the one example that always pops in my mind. We love him. Jane Eyre loves him. I bet his insane wife is of a different opinion, even if he has her locked up for what he considers "her own good".

For all I know, I am someone's villain. You are someone's villain. Each person, trying to go through life the best they can is a villain to another.

Realistically, I am probably far too boring to be another person's villain, but how do I know? How do I know my trying to do good in my life isn't inadvertently harming another?

Personally, I have a bit of a flair for the dramatic, so my villains tend to be more outgoing with their evil-doing than the everyday inadvertent villain, but I still like to think about their motivation. They likely possess a general sense of what is right and wrong. They may feel bad about what they are doing. Would they feel worse if they did "the right thing"?

Why?