Villain - Protagonist?

[Deleted]

So basically, in the series of books I'm writing, I'm trying to break as many cliches as possible, one of them being that it's utterly impossible at times to tell who's "the villain", which I would hope is a good thing. The "main villain" so to say, Summer, is a terrorist within The Supernatural world who like many other Supernaturals despises The Fairys (the self-appointed law-enforcement and governing body of the Supernatural world). She has been causing a lot of trouble for The Fairys, but is eventually captured on a desolate graveyard (strangely enough, without any struggle). Summer is shipped off to the greatest prison The Fairys have, a massive tower out at sea and lock her up in there. About a week later, one silent night, Summer's closest minion, Arden (a young boy who is like a son to her) with his gift of persuasion (literally) gets passed the guards and frees Summer. Together, they unleash chaos upon the prison and free all the other prisoners, most of them eager to take revenge upon The Fairys. What used to be a safe place to keep the most dangerous Supernaturals has now turned into the starting point of a potential war. Several groups get interwined with the events at the prison, including a special team that handles these kind of situations and the prison's therapist, Maestra.

So, basically, you see there are a lot of characters and not really one protagonist or a "Oooh, a chosen one to stand against the forces of evil". I'd say Summer is a very prominent protagonist but being a crazy bitch (sort of) and all... I'm just curious as to how you would approach such a character as a prominent character rather than a typical villain?

[arcanius]

I'm actually trying something similar, one of my "villains" is Zarien, an ancient and extremely powerful sorcerer, and last memeber of the now extinct race of the Naras who ruled the entire world with technology and magic, Zarien himself was the supreme ruler, seeing how slowly being rich and of noble blood had become more than being a good person, how his own people were destroying the world and slowly falling into consumption and greed, so he destroyed them all by himself saving the world and ahnialating his own corrupted race. He devoured their souls and has lived for 10 000 years without aging, staying vigilant and waiting if the new civilizations become as corrupted in order to destroy them and consume their souls powering himself for the next time, and so on and so on until finally a pure and good race finally appears. He tells the main characters how he couldn't think of a way and IF mankind does the same mistakes he will not hesitate to bring armageddon, though he also notes that if they somehow manage to make it he'll just run out of life essence. So is he evil for destroying millions of living beings or good for preserving the world. He's not a chosen one or something, hell if anything the god Death grants the protagonist power in order to have some chance against Zarien(And thats the protagonist making a deal with the greatest dark god).

Now to your question - I don't dwell on this really, simply make your character and then ask yourself this question "If this was a person - what would they do?" the best characters are always grey, the ones who can make good or evil descisions depending on their personality.

[Georgaina]

I can perhaps present you with a paraphrase from George R. R. Martin, the writer of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' and 'Game of Thrones'. He is, as you perhaps know, very good at creating villains who are likeable and good guys who are dislikable. "If you have people cheering on the hero and booing the bad guy, you're dealing with cardboard, not characters" & "I don't believe anyone is truly evil, nor truly good. Everyone has a bit of both in them."

And definately let your characters live their own lives, as it were. You make up the general idea, but let them flow natural from the moment they exist on paper/on pc. Indeed, ask yourself what you'd do if you were them. If 'a bit of both' is done correctly, the villains and the good guys are only truly recognisable from socially accepted morals they may or may not have.

[annoyed]

Aug 23, 2014 9:20:52 GMT -8 Georgaina said:

I can perhaps present you with a paraphrase from George R. R. Martin, the writer of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' and 'Game of Thrones'. He is, as you perhaps know, very good at creating villains who are likeable and good guys who are dislikable. "If you have people cheering on the hero and booing the bad guy, you're dealing with cardboard, not characters" & "I don't believe anyone is truly evil, nor truly good. Everyone has a bit of both in them."

And definately let your characters live their own lives, as it were. You make up the general idea, but let them flow natural from the moment they exist on paper/on pc. Indeed, ask yourself what you'd do if you were them. If 'a bit of both' is done correctly, the villains and the good guys are only truly recognisable from socially accepted morals they may or may not have.

Although if you intend for people to identify with and root for the heroes and despise the villains but end up doing the opposite, you're probably a bad writer (i.e. SMeyer)

[Georgaina]

Aug 23, 2014 13:31:25 GMT -8 annoyed said:

Aug 23, 2014 9:20:52 GMT -8 Georgaina said:

I can perhaps present you with a paraphrase from George R. R. Martin, the writer of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' and 'Game of Thrones'. He is, as you perhaps know, very good at creating villains who are likeable and good guys who are dislikable. "If you have people cheering on the hero and booing the bad guy, you're dealing with cardboard, not characters" & "I don't believe anyone is truly evil, nor truly good. Everyone has a bit of both in them."

And definately let your characters live their own lives, as it were. You make up the general idea, but let them flow natural from the moment they exist on paper/on pc. Indeed, ask yourself what you'd do if you were them. If 'a bit of both' is done correctly, the villains and the good guys are only truly recognisable from socially accepted morals they may or may not have.

Although if you intend for people to identify with and root for the heroes and despise the villains but end up doing the opposite, you're probably a bad writer (i.e. SMeyer)

I never stated that the opposite would happen. I merely suggested the readers get to choose for the most part who they want to root for. In GRRM's stories you can NEVER be sure what happens, which is something I dig. I don't want to know from the very start that the good guys are going to survive. This is what really put me off of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, the fact that my assumptions had been correct. Not one of the heroes died, as it is heavily implied that Boromir died due to his greed (thus a sin) and Gandalf came back to life. As for Frodo, he chose to go all by himself, so goodbye shock and heavy emotion for me.

In ASoIaF, you can choose to like or dislike all the Lannisters, with perhaps the exception of Tyrion. You can choose to like or dislike Stannis and Daenerys as well. All Starks (except perhaps Sansa) will generally be likable, but you can heavily dissagree. There is no suggestion that you should think a certain way about them, it entirely depends upon you.

[arcanius]

^ Well I think Tolkien did say he considered killing off Frodo in the end. Then again, considering how Lotr works, it really doesn't have complex characters, and to be honest - it really does not need to have them, now keep in mind "simple" not "flat", sometimes a simpler story and characters is the better option, and overly complicated psychological navel gazing is not the right way of going for stuff.

Now as for "Good" and "Evil" I don't even try to use such concepts beyond a purely hypothetical context. I don't believe in their existance. Good and evil? Right and wrong? These are binary oppositions that the inhabitants of this world use to comfort and define themselves in a terrifying universe they do not understand. I will self quote from my work:

"
...The creatures of magic are yet another form of life, just as us. They are simply not the same "life form" as we understand the term. They are not organic. They are extradimentional, and they influence reality in a way that seems sorcerous to us. Supernatural if you will. So then name them spirits, outsiders, planar dwellers and whatever else you think of.
What however all of you need to remember is that there are no magnificent bright gods out there, in the darkness of the astral(essentialy how the planeswalkers call space), no great demons and ministers of evil. There is no fundamental, immutable good or evil in the universe. It is simply too large and sterile for such petty melodrama..."

This essentialy is in a nutshell one of the core ideas I have for the said work.