One of the writer advices I keep hearing is, “Your antagonist cannot be evil for evil’s sake! Go into their history! Show the circumstances and psychology that made them evil! Nobody is just evil because they want to be!”
On the contrary.
Everyone is evil because they want to be.
The victim mentality is how they JUSTIFY their actions.
I skipped school a lot when I was a kid. Yes, I was getting beaten up and bullied non stop at school. Was it bad? Yes. Was my life in danger? Probably not, except by misfortune.
Why did I skip school a lot? Because I was lazy and didn’t want to go to school. School was boring. I justify it by saying I’m a genius (yes… used to have paperwork to prove it), and by saying if I didn’t, the kids in school would kill me.
“Okay, name just ONE villain in fiction who’s a villain because he wanted to be!”
Uriah Heep.
“Um…”
Oh yeah. He did it because he wanted to. How about Baron Vladimir Harkonnen? Feyd Rautha Harkonnen? Dracula? Saruman? Sauron? John Silver and Billy Bones? Every other pirate you’ve read about in fiction?
Every one of them – evil because they chose it.
“What about Buffalo Bill?”
Buffalo Bill was deranged, but chose the actions he took to benefit himself. Believe it or not, this was the background to the very first college course I ever took – that we are responsible for our choices and actions.
You can write a story where the villain chose being evil because he liked it. Or it gave him a feeling of power. Or he found it paid much better than being good. Or he was greedy or covetous. There’s NOTHING wrong with that! Ignore advice to the contrary!
You don’t have to write about how his mother used to flay the skin off his back with a leather strap when he was a boy.
Does that make for a tragic, flawed villain? You bet it does. Will it make him more interesting as a villain? Possibly. But Francis Dollarhyde was far overshadowed by the “Keeper of wisdom” character in “Red Dragon” – Hannibal Lechter. To the point where you’re reading it and thinking, “hey, I’m more interested in the cannibal guy.”
So don’t fall for the advice that every villain must be tragic. Save that for the special one. Jules Verne wrote many novels, many. And only one Prince Dakkar/Captain Nemo.
You’re going to write many antagonists. Save the special treatment for that one that really captures your interest.
And if it turns out he’s interesting simply because he’s utterly evil… there’s nothing wrong with that!
Bottom line – evaluate all writing advice, because it’s what works for them. You may well find it works for you to have a Long John Silver who’s a pirate because he liked it. Or a Ninja who’s an assassin because he likes it.
Writing advice has to work for you.
