The Unholy Trinity of Baddies: Building Better Villains PART 1

Although the medium of video games has boasted many iconic villains throughout the years, a quick scan of the most popular ones reveals some interesting results. It seems, in my humble opinion, that often we throw everything at the wall, just to see what sticks. Sometimes it works and they’re fantastic. Most of the time, it doesn’t, and they become forgettable at best, or at worst – BORING.

I would posit then, that we as writers and narrative designers need to think about our villains in a bit more detail than perhaps we have thus far. A good villain is as important to your game as your protagonist. In many cases they are MORE important – particularly if your player character is the silent type, and/or one designed by the player themselves. Your villain is where your writing can shine. But it’s not just as simple as creating a character who is as evil as the player is good. In this two-part series, I aim to discuss the villain archetypes that I have identified in my career, which I refer to as the Unholy Trinity. In the second half, we will then consider the way in which these villains should be dealt with so as to provide a satisfactory conclusion for players and audiences.

That Which Already Exists

Scan the internet for top ten lists of video game villains. Think of your favourites as well. Such a consideration might turn up the following within games:

• Pyramid Head – a psychotic humanoid monster from Silent Hill 2.
• Sephiroth – the arch-nemesis himself from the much beloved Final Fantasy 7.
• Andrew Ryan – the founder of the morally barren underwater city of Rapture in Bioshock.
• Or Vaas Montenegro, Joseph Seed, the charismatic, yet highly insane men that define the Far Cry series.

We might also think of the more light-hearted, comical figures: Bowser, Neo Cortex etc.

If we look outside of games to TV instead, we might also consider:

• Serena Waterford, the fascist wife of a Christian commander in the dystopic The Handmaid’s Tale.
• Cersei Lannister – the brutally protective mother and Queen Regent of Game of Thrones.
• Or Walter White – High school teacher turned Drug Lord from Breaking Bad.

What seems clear to me is that in the best cases across mediums, our villains are not the end-all be-all. Rather, they are often the result of a broken system – whether this is socio-political, spiritual, or otherwise. Your bad guy should be a symptom of a greater issue at play in the world, not the ultimate problem itself. Considering your antagonists in this way allows for an added existential threat, a ticking clock of implosion that results from the perpetuation of this system.

The Unholy Trinity

Examining villains like these, it becomes clear that there are a whole range of archetypes one can choose from. However, an attempt to condense these archetypes down into an easy three to remember leads to some interesting revelations...

Let’s look now at three archetypes of the villain, which I like to call the Unholy Trinity. It is my belief that a story should include all three to function as a powerful and engaging narrative.

Evil Incarnate

This archetype is what one might call the lowest form of villain available to us as writers. To clarify here – low in this context does not mean that it is a bad archetype that should be avoided. Yes, it is more likely to fall into cliché, but that does not mean he serves no purpose. In fact, many of stories most iconic bad guys fall into this category. Rather, you should consider this archetype as the lowest hanging fruit. He’s a character that is easy to create, easy to explore and which triggers base negative emotions in your audience: anger, fear, hate, and so on.

So, what is he exactly? Well, this villain tends to be evil simply for the sake of being evil. He may have once begun his life as a good guy (think Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars becoming Darth Vader), but has, by the point of your story, now let go of almost every sliver of goodness that he once had, for the sake of some ultimate personal goal. Often, the “good” version that this character once was is light-years away from who he is now. Why? Because there is no such thing as a truly evil person, is there? We all think we are the heroes of our own stories. Even the very worst of us have found ways to justify atrocities under the guise of our own morals. It is therefore incredibly difficult – if not impossible, to write him into your narrative in a completely grounded, believable way.

He will tend to have a high body count, but his kills are rarely personal. As a killer, he acts more like a force of nature, rather than someone who has an intimate reason for committing murder. He might be highly melodramatic or exist mostly off screen as the “ultimate evil” – think Sauron, the Dark Lord from Lord of the Rings, or alternatively, he could be a lowly “grunt” – a henchman or faceless, voiceless slasher killer that is completely unknowable.

Ultimately, your Evil Incarnate villain exists because in that moment in which he is brought low, defeated, and often killed, he creates a powerful sense of satisfaction or catharsis within your audience. We love to see evil get its comeuppance.

The Mad Man (or Woman)

Moving up a level to the middle range, you have the Mad Man (or Woman). This is the archetype which many “cult-leader” characters inhabit. For example, he may say to the player “I’m all about sharing God’s love, preaching the Kingdom of Heaven” while cruelly executing the non-believers who get in his way.

The Mad Man (or Woman) is typically an outsider to what we perceive as traditional society. He feels misunderstood, yet he only has himself to blame. He is often highly manipulative and highly charismatic, but also operates mainly through fear and cruelty. He may lay claim to some sort of divine revelation or secret knowledge, which dictates and justifies his actions – i.e., “the rest of the world would never understand!” “Only I can do this!”

The Mad Man (or Woman) tends to kill a lot of other characters during his work, and while each kill is personal in the sense that he will take his time to do it, and possibly derive pleasure from the act, he may also kill indiscriminately simply to make a point. He is typically very efficient and highly strategic but is prone to narcissism or pride. He can often be defeated by the Player luring him into a trap by suggesting that they can beat him at his own game.

Usually, his origin story is ignored, barely explored, or shown to be incredibly traumatic and dark. If he does have an origin story, it acts as a microcosm of his behaviour in the present day.

This character exists to provide an enjoyable level of tension for your audience, as well as a high degree of spectacle. We enjoy him because of his high level of unpredictability. He might claim to be motivated by one thing, but then acts as if he’s motivated by something else entirely – a reason which often contradicts what he admits with his mouth.

Like the Evil Incarnate archetype, his death provides catharsis to your audience. Unlike Evil Incarnate, our desire to see his destruction is one of blood-lust. He's the villain who dies horrible and the audience cheers. He's a sacrifice for the proverbial blood sport of fiction, one which we feel justified in offering up. The Mad Man (or Woman) has also violated the sacred social contract we all inherently agree to when we live together. Thus, his defeat is a course correction, returning things to a relative state of status quo.

The Morally Complex ?Villain?

Now we reach the highest form of tyranny in the Unholy trinity, the morally Complex ?Villain? – emphasis of those question marks as you will shortly come to see. This character tends to be a person who is highly relatable. They are someone we can empathize or at least sympathize with.

She may have great romantic chemistry with other characters that we typically think of as good guys, or she may be marred by tragedy. Often, we see ourselves within her. She tends to have a detailed backstory, which paints her as a normal person effected by extremely abnormal circumstances. Her backstory shows us how she got to be where she is now and reveals to us that it was almost inevitable for her to turn out the way that she has. More than any other archetype, she is affected and irrevocably changed by the broken system which both she and the protagonist live under.

We look at her and realize that if we ourselves had walked that very same path, we likely would have turned out exactly the same way or collapsed under the pressure of such trauma. In this, she reveals to us that she is incredibly strong of will.

Now, this is not to say that this character is a good person (though, as we previously clarified – villains always think that they are). Rather, she has come to be ruthless and uncaring towards the people who get in the way of her personal agenda. She sees the way in which she treats them as “just part of the game.”

Speaking of her agenda – it is often understandable, or even objectively good. But it is her method – the way in which she goes about achieving her goals – that we as the audience morally object to.

She is often highly intelligent and charismatic but can also be incredibly unpredictable – not because of her unreliable mind, like the Mad Man (or Woman), but because she plays her cards extremely close to her chest and is political in the actions she takes. Watching her, we should always feel like she may be about to reveal to us that she was one step ahead of our protagonist this whole time.

Such a character tends to have a small personal body-count, as she will be quite picky about getting her hands dirty, only doing so for important reasons. The Morally Complex Villain often has the highest body count of all if you consider the amount of people she has put to death through her orders, her actions, or indeed, her inactions. She may send an assassin to take care of business or be a political leader that is presiding over what amounts to genocide.

The Morally Complex Villain is an efficient, strategic leader who does not hesitate in taking risks and moving boldly against her enemies. She tends to be occasionally cruel, believing that her cruelty serves some higher purpose.

Lastly, she is more than willing to make great sacrifices to achieve what she wants. She will betray friends, lovers, and family members if she deems it the best way forward. In short, her purpose is to reveal the shadow in all of us. We flip-flop between loving her and hating her. She is confusing. She makes us unable to align ourselves with one side or the other for 100% of the time.

And when she is defeated – if she is defeated – she provokes in us, the most complex of emotions. Her defeat is satisfying, yet bitter-sweet. We are glad that she has been foiled, but we also feel for her, we mourn the loss of her dreams and the fact that she never had a chance to see the error of her ways and seek redemption – because deep down, we understand, that she IS us – only under very different, very extreme circumstances. We all like to think that if we were confronted with hard moral choices – we’d make the right decision, yet in reality, it's not always so simple.

Until Next Time

So, there you go, the Unholy Trinity. Exploring your villains through these lenses will allow you to create powerful bad guys and gals that are entirely capable of holding up your narrative on their own.

In the next post, we will shift tact a little bit and ask the question: what happens if our villains see the error of their ways? What if they want redemption? And if they’ve killed or worse, can they be allowed that redemption at all?

Keep an eye out for that, as it’s a favourite subject of mine. Understanding a structure that can guide you in answering these questions, will make for truly satisfying endings.