One Hundred Fantasy Clichés That Really Need To Rest In Peace

#89: The Villain is Entirely Wrong

A common trope in the fantasy genre is the popular hero versus villain storyline.  These stories are simply a one sided effort by the heroes to take down the villains.  The villains in most of these stories are completely one note characters, who do not have any other motivation besides destroying the world, despite the fact that destroying the world would kill them too.  Most of these stories as you may have guessed are usually not exactly the strongest writing wise.  The predictability is extremely high with the heroes almost always getting the victory, except in the few rare cases, such as in the iconic Watchmen comics.  Otherwise, these kinds of tales usually are not the most memorable excluding stories that still manage to create complex main characters to make the one note villains feel like less of a problem.  Basically a slight conflict from the villain's side usually emerges, the hero has to go fight them, the hero wins after the climatic fight, and that is it.  No one tries to go too deep in the minds of the characters, especially the villains.  Why should they anyway?  It is not like there are any villains in popular culture out there whose motives could be seen as relatable to the audience.  That would just be silly, right?

  However, this is actually far from the truth.  In the recent decade, many villains have become more complex in their motivations, stepping away from the usual cliché of destroying the world.  Instead, their motivations stem from real world problems that if given a closer look actually can be relatable to not only the audience themselves, but the heroes too.  A recent notable example is the adaptation of Thanos from the Marvel movie, Avengers: Infinity War.  In it, the main villain Thanos wants to hunt down the six Infinity Stones to wipe out half the universe.  While his methods of achieving these means are deplorable and would rip apart innocent families from each other, the reason for it lies with overpopulation in the universe. Thanos himself witnessed overpopulation on his home planet of Titan, where the issue destroyed the entire civilization there.  Additionally, wiping out half the population of another planet, the one his adoptive daughter Glamora lived on, had proven to work in the past, with Thanos even confirming the starvation on that same planet was eliminated because of his interference.  Hence, his character motivation has a well defined meaning behind them, even if the route he took to achieve this feat is deplorable.  What could of been a one note motivation to wipe out half the universe just became a relatable aspect of this character to the audience, with humanity in real life actually mirroring this issue with a rising population of over seven billion people.  The hero versus villain story now not only is the more memorable, but breaks one of the most notorious clichés towards villainous characters.

  Audiences of all kinds crave complexity, both in the main cast and the villainous foes they must fight to keep order.  Having a main character with relatable flaws is just one way to grab the audience's interest.  Making the villain have goals that could be seen as actually somewhat in the right is another, much more superior way to achieve this craving from the audience.  This is especially true now, with many villainous characters in multiple areas of media having relatable motives.  Kyubey from both the anime and manga adaptation of Puella Magi Madoka Magica has the goal of combating wasted energy in the universe by creating magical girls and then turning them into witches to release high amounts of much needed energy.  Light Yagami from the Death Note manga and anime wants to wipe out all criminals and does so by causing the majority to have massive heart attacks.  Finally, there is Negan from the Walking Dead TV show and comics,whose main objective is to keep his new civilization alive by fighting off and scaring away any potential threats.  Although their actions depending on the viewer are deplorable or relatable, making their motives be based on real life world issues makes these villains more complex characters than they would have been previously. 

  Glancing at a conflict of any kind in fiction, the most remembered and revered are those with strong motivations on both sides.  Whenever the hero and the villain both present their motivations with ounces of relatable aspects, an audience finds themselves more attached to the source material.  It is because these instances present more complexity to each of the characters.  Complexity in any type of medium and to every type of character makes for a more interesting story.  That is why these newly found complex villains with not entirely wrong motivations are more desired than their bland destroying the world counterparts. 

  The next time you try to create a villain, be sure to make their motivation, even a simple one such as ruling the world, have a strong basis behind it.  When the villains have complex motivations, the heroes find themselves a harder, more interesting foe to fight.  The results of this complexity draws in more of an audience to your work and thus a potential loyal fan base.  The more interesting the villain's motivations, the better the results will be.