(Did I just make a The Lego Movie 2 reference? Yes. Do I now have a song stuck in my head? Also yes).
Most of the antagonists I write, or at least, that I enjoy writing, have distinct goals driven by personal motivations that don’t start as outright evil.
In my latest Huntress book, Fae, even the extremists who are about to hurt a lot of innocent people if their attack succeeds aren’t doing so because they want to cause harm. They’re scared. They feel like they’re backed into a corner (even if they aren’t). And someone else is nudging them into a terrible direction.
In this case, that’s Dr. Johnson (main antagonist in Changeling and the primary antagonist for the rest of this series). Which leads me to consider, is Dr. Johnson, secret mastermind, truly evil?
I don’t think I’d say evil. A bad guy? Oh yeah. Her actions cause major harm. But even she is being driven by a misguided sense of wanting to make the world a beautiful place.
What about Lord Cafrash Menchtoteale, antagonist in Magic’s Stealing? He forges a sword that allows him to steal the magic from the kingdom for the Trickster god (which causes a lot of mages to fall ill and/or die), and then goes on to lead an army of shadows impervious to regular weapons as he invades Cirena.
The catch?
He’s not doing this willingly.
He got tricked into serving the Trickster by trying to protect someone he cared about, and breaking that bond isn’t something he can do without either a really powerful string mage or divine intervention. And the Trickster, who can possess him as part of the bond, isn’t going to let that intervention happen.
So now Cafrash is doing his best to follow the Trickster’s orders, all while trying to mitigate the harm.
For a much more villainous antagonist, let’s look at Lord Black from my Distant Horizon universe. He’s one of the utopian Community’s founders. He got his start in an alternate universe as a supersoldier who gets betrayed by the authority that created him, and so he goes on a rampage uprooting that corruption before getting locked away… only to find himself in an entirely different universe that was wholly unprepared for what he could do.
(Note: Most of those backstory details haven’t been detailed in the published yet, just speculated on by characters, but that’s the gist of it).
Given the opportunity, Lord Black upends the corruption in his new universe (the one we see in Distant Horizon) to create a peaceful, secure community that cares for its citizens’ needs (mostly), and is pretty decent at protecting them.
But that protection and care came at the cost of turning people with powers into mindless beasts, hiding the existence of powers and those beasts, committing genocide against those of pretty much any religion in order to lower the chances of religious-based uprising, as well as a myriad of other war crimes, all while blaming it on a non-existent plague.
Not a good guy.
Eventually, once all that gets revealed by a monster of his organization’s making, the Community he worked so hard to build crumbles.
(There’s more I’d like to say about him as a character and his potential redemption points, but that would also give major spoilers for the series, so… I’ll just leave it at that for now).
So, where was I going with this? I guess it’s to say I generally like writing complex villains.
They might not appear complex initially, but given time and a chance for their backstory to emerge, eventually that complication—the part that makes us question how we should feel about them and whether or not they’re redeemable—shows up.
Most of the time.
In my “Twins in Ferta” story—working title, I’ll figure out something better later—which I’m currently drafting and releasing to the Wishing Blade Universe newsletter chapter-by-chapter, there is a particular character who I’d give the “evil” designation to.
He acts only for himself, hurts others for his gain and pleasure, and isn’t making any attempt to do better. I don’t spend a whole lot of time with him on-screen, and I don’t plan to redeem him. (Let’s just say he’s not getting a happy ending.)
Long story short, I prefer to write antagonists who aren’t evil for evil’s sake. They might not always get a redemption arc, but generally they’re going to have a logical reason for doing the things they do.
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Want to see these antagonists in action?
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Happy reading and writing!
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 