On the Nature of Villainy

In my writing career I have seldom been able to make use of well-defined villains. Perhaps that was due to my definition of the role. I never saw a character acting against our hero/heroine out of sheer cussedness; they had to have motivation, and motivation which came from some logical or plausible origin or cause. That's me being a realist, I suppose. Villains acting out of pure evil is the stuff of comic books, to my mind.

In most of my novels, the hero/heroine (protagonist) generally struggles not against another character but against himself/herself (e.g., self-doubt, frustrations, lack of confidence, physical or mental flaws, etc.). They could struggle against another protagonist, each one being the other's antagonist while neither is truly a villain. They might also struggle against forces of nature (including dragons or even alien beings). I haven't used a distinct person to oppose the protagonist directly.

Having another character oppose the main character (protagonist) simply as a vehicle for drama never seemed quite fair to me. Add conflict, they say. No conflict and you have a Mary Sue story. It might be easy to create a kind of character who could be described as a monster, a character who acts against the protagonist for no more reason than to oppose almost as a matter of principle. Like: I'm the 'baddy' so I must act bad, no getting around it.

Usually characters act in their own interests and those interests tend to simply interfere with other characters' interests. That isn't a true villain, that's just normal human nature. Each one is usually an agreeable person most of the time but given a random incident and villainy can erupt - like road rage. They can be bad (disagreeable), clumsy (abusive), insensitive (rude), but are seldom actually evil. To manifest a completely evil character, such as may be found in some fantasy or science fiction stories, always seems a bit deus ex machina to me - an artificial device inserted to solve a dramatic problem.

In the first two books of the FLU SEASON trilogy, a lot of bad acts happen (it's pandemic time and our hero/heroine are escaping a city in chaos for what they hope will be sanctuary in the countryside). Yet the characters performing those bad acts are not what one could say are villains. They are merely "normal" people acting for themselves - to survive. A hungry person stealing bread from me is not so much a villain as a desperate normal person acting for self-preservation. In the same circumstance, I might do the same, but I wouldn't call myself a villain.

Finally, in writing Book 3 of my FLU SEASON trilogy, DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS, I created a good set of great [sic!] villains. I did not relish bringing them to life, for they acted against my wishes. Yet I could not fault them for acting according to their own best interests. Their actions may result from having some animosity to our hero/heroine, of course. They are humans, after all. They are not, however, pure evil incarnate - although their victims may believe they are.

The first in chronological order is a figure named Parson Brown who meets our central family as the leader of a band of slavers. His backstory is one of abuse and opportunism. Even so, he is performing a useful function, he believes, and profits from it. It is his playful interactions in the course of evil acts which gives him depth, making his actions truly despicable. He could be said to possess no conscience, acting only for his own amusement.

My second favorite villain in that novel is the woman who runs the local brothel, Madame Delight. She stands almost as a female version of Brown. She delights in the abuse of her girls, openly stating she doesn't care about them; they only serve her. She has a backstory which includes her being bullied by the pretty girls when she was young. Now she rules over them, forcing them into sex work. And she enjoys every minute of her efforts to abuse them.

There are other villains but they are a little more morally gray. Such as Mr. Chesterfield who acts badly but feels bad about what he does. His brother, however, acts badly but doesn't feel bad about it. There are marauders and militia acting badly, and other devious characters who lie, cheat, and steal. Even our central family's supposed friends will lie and cheat to save themselves at the expense of our hero/heroine. Some will commit murder to save themselves - but is that the act of a villain?

I don't like villains - actors like to portray them because the roles are often richer than those of the hero/heroine. I feel like I am creating monsters and unleashing them upon innocent protagonists. That makes me feel bad. I would wish my good guys/gals to fight forces of nature or against other protagonists - so there isn't any actual villain but momentarily disagreeable characters who happen to get in the way. Then I feel less responsible.

So why do villains act bad? Self-preservation? Self-motivation? Some kind of reward, achievement or material gain? Satisfaction in causing harm? A feeling of superiority? Playing God? Controlling someone's actions or some physical space? Seldom is it going to be the simple desire for amusement alone.

I recall one time in high school when a guy my age kept hassling me. We were both about the same size so I couldn't say he was 'bullying' me but he was definitely annoying. I asked him why he kept bothering me. There didn't seem any logic to his actions. I'd done nothing to him. His reply, rather than a confession of being in league with the devil, was simply "Because it's fun." All right, that made sense. I strove to make bothering me less fun after that, mostly by avoiding him.

A villain wants something, just as the hero/heroine does. It could be the basic pleasure from an act that brings a sense of agency - the power to act in the world, to be present, to declare "I'm here and I matter!" A lot of criminals act out for such a reason: to prove they exist (violence), to leave their mark (graffiti, vandalism), and that's all. Others believe and follow the self-fulfilling mantra to 'tear down the system' as iconoclasts - a system they generally do not understand. Anyone who gets in the way of that effort could be hurt.

In real life a villain will seldom want to hurt the hero/heroine just for the heck of it - although the act may bring pleasure to the villain. The main motivating factor is going to be the desire to achieve something - just as the hero/heroine wants to achieve a certain something.

In my forthcoming novel, Book 4: THE WAY OF THE DAD, set in an authoritarian society rebuilt following the 10-year pandemic and decades of anarchy, our hero* is beset by the ultimate villain - I'm happy to announce. Allow me to introduce Big Sister. She will care for you, her citizen family, give you all you need - but only what is absolutely necessary, for your own good. But there are rules to follow and punishments if you don't. And that is where our hero finds himself. What can he do to escape the city? How can he save his family?

*The narrator and protagonist is grown-up Fritz, born in Book 3, the youngest son of Isla.

FLU SEASON 4: THE BOOK OF DAD (a sequel to the trilogy) is coming June 2024.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2024 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

What We Gain From Loss

Life makes you take turns, wait your turn, and often turn around so much you get dizzy. Instead of rushing on into the heady world of publishing thrill, I've been forced to pause and consider everything in the world around me. Oh, the new novel is fine, waiting its turn. Summer vacation is full of the usual indolence. The day job is waiting like a closed oyster. And the laundry is done. But something is missing. There is a strange emptiness here.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt once famously said that all we have to fear is fear itself. The point was that worrying about something can be as crippling as the effect of the something actually happening. In the same way, fearing loss can be as debilitating as experiencing the loss itself. But loss is its own strange animal. 

Perhaps what a person fears most is loss of him/herself: loss of identity, loss of agency. When you are no longer who you are, who you have always believed yourself to be--when you lose that facade or mask you relied on for so long and people see you for who you really are, a kind of psychological nakedness--that kind of loss can be as real and as painful as death. Loss of agency, your ability to make a mark in the world, to make your own way, to act for your own benefit--can also be as devastating as a physical injury or paralysis yet it can come in psychological forms just as a loss of identity can.

Loss is the principal issue in many of my novels, it seems. It is easy to see in hindsight. Perhaps I chose that theme unconsciously or perhaps there was something intriguing about loss that drove me to explore it and its pain. After all, having a character lose something important and struggle to regain it is always a great way to introduce tension and advance the plot.

Of course there is the obvious loss of the significant other in a character's life. In AFTER ILIUM, Alex Parris loses Elena, the woman he has been having an affair with, and that loss drives him to take all kinds of risks to get her back. Along the way, he is threatened with the loss of his identity--how he sees himself, the kind of man he has been taught to be--and with loss of agency (his inability to act for himself, first by being in a jail, then by peer pressure to act differently than for his own interests, then by violence).

In THE DREAM LAND Trilogy, Sebastian is initially hurt by the loss of his love interest, Gina, but as he grows into his role as interdimensional voyager and accepts all that role entails, he becomes caught up with a life full of threats to his identity. He gets a little schizophrenic (mere IRS clerk or warrior on another world?) and from that wound also paranoid as he sees that others do not see him as he sees himself. Through the trilogy he is constantly losing and fighting to regain many things. It never gets easy. In Book III, Gina faces the loss of her daughter, who she gives up in order to save her.

Eric, the male protagonist in the campus anti-romance A BEAUTIFUL CHILL and his female counterpart, Iris, have each suffered loss in their lives. When they find each other one winter night, they think the losses will cease. They think they have plugged the gaps--only to find they become each other's worst enemy. Each has a plan for the other but they do not accept such plans because they represent loss of identity.

Now, in my new novel, A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, our hero, Stefan, faces the greatest loss of all: his own bodily integrity. As he fights against nature--and God--he fights against the loss of himself. He does not want to transform, against his will, into a hideous and grotesque creature of the night. Moreover, it is that transformation that will cause him to lose Penny, the love of his life, who he refuses to let see him as he becomes uglier. He sees himself condemned to a painful, miserable, lonely existence: complete loss of identity, agency, and love.

People lose lots of things. Some things are given away, purposefully or haphazardly, with or without regret. Others are taken away. Car keys, card games, a race to a traffic light, the city's sports team's championship. People lose first grandparents, then parents, sometimes siblings, sometimes children. Fathers lose wives, mothers lose babies, babies lose fights with nature. People lose jobs. People lose weight. They lose pets. They lose homes. They lose their sense of well-being. They lose their safety. They lose their peace. They lose a pair of shoes they somehow misplaced. But misplacement means the shoes still exist, only they are in another realm. And loss itself can be when something you have is destroyed, whether deliberately or accidentally. You no longer have it. When the tornado comes, people cry out that all is lost--and it often is.

Or loss can be when you hope or expect or anticipate having something and then it doesn't arrive. It's rather like a child's Christmas wish. You have sat on Santa's lap begging for that special toy and the big guy assures you that you'll get it. Parents confirm you'll get it. So you wait anxiously through the days, even counting them off, looking forward to that wonderful day. But instead of that gift you have desired, there is nothing. Not a lump of coal, not even a stocking hung with care. Nothing. It's as though Christmas has been canceled and all the trappings have been taken down. It's as though the holiday never existed and your hopes and dreams never were hoped, never were dreamed. And everything is as it was before. You are returned to the heat of summer and Christmas seems years away again. That is what real loss is: never having that one precious thing.

So grab hold of all you have and be glad for it. Take pictures and stencil id numbers on everything. Lock them away. Then stare into the nearest mirror and make sure you are who you want to be. And always love your bunnies.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.